Lamenting on how poorly lawyers living with disabilities have
been neglected in the legal community the Association of Lawyers
with Disabilities in Nigeria (ALDIN) is set to carry out massive
advocacy campaign for the accessibility of the Justice
administration system to Persons with Disabilities (PWDs).
In a statement by the president of the ALDIN, Daniel Amaechi
Onwe, the campaign is supported by Disabilities Rights Fund and
objective of the advocacy is to make the court environment and
procedures as well as the policing system to be inclusive of PWDs
generally.
According to him a situation where our systems and structures do
not accommodate the peculiarities of PWDs is no longer acceptable.
PWDs suffer diverse form of injustice, but cannot approach the
courts to obtain justice due to the existence of different
architectural, attitudinal and procedural barriers.
The trauma of suffering injustice on the one hand and on the
other hand realizing that the justice administration system, where
you should seek redress, does not even contemplate your existence
is unimaginable.
“The situation is even worse with our policing system. The
architectural setting in the average police station loudly tells
you that PWDs are not welcome there.
“A deaf person, who has a complaint to make at the police
station is on his or her own, as there is no provision for sign
language interpretation.
Those on wheelchair cannot even enter the police stations in the
first place. And those with psycho-social disability who gets to
the police station to lodge reasonable complaints may be treated
with ignominy or chased away as nuisance.
“The lot of lawyers with disabilities is not even better.
Lawyers on wheelchairs cannot access our courts unless they crawl
on all fours. Our courts have no provision for Braille, tactile
marks or other media of assistive literacy.
“There are no provisions of sign language interpreters either.
Rules of Courts and Practice Directions do not make any
accommodation for lawyers or litigants with disabilities. Lawyers
with disabilities are discriminated against when it comes to
employment in chambers and other workplaces. You can imagine the
pain of going through all the hog of legal training to become a
lawyer, and then be rendered redundant. This ugly situation should
stop.
“So, in this project, we shall be strategically engaging the
critical stakeholders with a view of collaboratively working out
solutions. Every aspect of the project shall be measured and
profiled, including the level of responsiveness of each stakeholder
engaged. At the end of the day we will come out with an objective
report.
“The Association in it’s bid to achieve this goal will be
engaging the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), the Chief Judge of the
Federal High Court, the Chief Judge of the FCT, the
Attorney-General or Solicitor-General, the Inspector-General of
Police, the Commissioner of Police FCT, the NBA President, the NBA
Chairman FCT among others.
“Fortunately, we now have a legal framework to work with –
Discrimination against Persons with Disabilities (Prohibition) Act.
So, this project is about giving effect to the provisions of this
Act. It also aligns with Article 13 of the United Nations
Convention on Rights of Persons with Disabilities, dealing with
Access to Justice, and goal 16 of the Sustainable Development Goals
(SDG), dealing on Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions.
The justice administration system is expected to take the lead
and show others example with regards to compliance with newly
enacted Act and international best practices.
“On the part of the NBA, which is our primary constituency, we
are lucky we now have a President who campaigned on issues of PWDs.
These were his exact campaign words:
“Another category of lawyers whose welfare I will work towards
ameliorating, from a professional standpoint, is that of the aged
and disabled lawyers. If I am elected as the NBA President, I will
work towards achieving better welfare programmes for these
categories of lawyers and generally for all lawyers…
…Persons living with disability and the aged have special needs
which unfortunately are not generally catered for in our Nigerian
environment. These needs include access facilities into buildings,
toilet facilities, specialized reading and legal practice materials
and aids, customized technology aids and facilities. My
administration as the NBA President will work at installing these
facilities at the NBA Secretariat where the model law office would
be located.
The model law office at the National Secretariat would also be
made friendly to and usable by aged persons and persons living with
disability. These facilities would gradually be expanded and
provided at the NBA Zonal Offices in the 3 Zones of the NBA.
We would also open dialogue with the Chief Justice of the
Federation and the heads of various courts in the Federation and
the States on the required modifications for making the courts and
the court facilities accessible to and usable by the aged and
persons living with disability. More importantly, we shall dialogue
constantly with these categories of lawyers to continually
understand their needs and how best we can assist in meeting
them.”
ALDIN further stated that they intend to collaborate with NBA
President, Paul Usoro, SAN, in delivering on this lofty
promise.
“We must admit that in the past two years, before the current
regime, the NBA has incrementally been accommodating of lawyers
with disabilities. This was reflected in the 2017 and 2018 NBA
Annual General Conferences. With the kind of promises made by the
incumbent NBA President, Mr. Paul Usoro, SAN it is expected that
the standard will go no other way, but upwards.
“By the end of this project we are optimistic about having a
justice administration system that we all can be proud of and that
will better serve the interest of all.
We, therefore, use this medium to, in advance, call for the
maximum cooperation of all the relevant stakeholders, as this is a
mutually beneficial project that will foster national
development.,” he stated