Court must be accessible too all

international | crime and justice | press release

Tuesday October 26, 2004 11:59

by Eoin Dubsky

Trident Court Flummoxed by Human Rights Challenge

A Scottish anti-nuke activist yesterday told the local court near Faslane nuke base that until the courtroom was accessible to all the public (people in wheelchairs included) it surely couldn't be said to be a place where fair and public tribunals are held. This press release reminds me, I don't recall seeing a ramp or lift at the entrance to Ennis courthouse, where Mary Kelly is on trial again today. Hmmm.

TRIDENT PLOUGHSHARES
Press Release: 25 October 2004

Today a Trident Ploughshare activist set Helensburgh District Court back on its heels when she claimed that it was incompetent because the courtroom is not accessible to people with disabilities.

Jane Tallents (46), from Helensburgh, was cited to appear today at a Means Enquiry to explain why she had not paid a fine of £150 for cutting the perimeter fence at the Coulport Trident base on Loch Long. Rather than address the question of the fine Jane read out a submission in which she explained that provisions in the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) regarding access to public services, which applied to the court, had come into force on 1 October. This gave additional strength to the entitlement under Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights to a fair and public hearing. Since the court was not accessible to people with disabilities, any hearing within it could not be said to be public.

She told Justice of the Peace Fraser Gillies that the Trident Ploughshares campaign has had no response to a letter sent over a month ago to the Clerk of the Court asking what plans the Council has to make the court compliant with the act.

JP Gillies attempted to continue with the Means Enquiry but Jane insisted on a response to her submission. The JP then adjourned the court for over 40 minutes to consider the position. On his return he did acknowledge that there were issues to be resolved but said that the Means Enquiry was competent. Jane then told him that since it seemed to be in order for the court to use the excuse lack of funds to cover for its failure to abide by the law over access, then it was in order for her to say that she could not afford the fine, which she asked him to remit. She did make it clear that even if she were a millionaire she would still refuse to pay. The JP then avoided the issue by giving her another 14 days to pay.

Later Jane said: "It's immoral for the court to exclude disabled people in this way, but given its attitude to people who protest peacefully against WMD, this is hardly surprising. However the court does have to operate within the law and no explanation was forthcoming today about how they will do that. Mr Gilliesuncharacteristic reluctance to jail me today could be a recognition that a challenge on this issue to the High Court could prove hugely problematic, not just for this court, but for courts across the land."

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Comments (6 of 6)

Acccessibility Begins at Home

by web4all

Wed Oct 27, 2004 02:34

When you're done pointing the finger, perhaps you'll do something about the inaccessibility of the www.indymedia.ie site. It fails the most basic accessibility guidelines of the W3C - you can test it yourself using:

http://bobby.watchfire.com/bobby/html/en/index.jsp

When is indymedia.ie going to meet these accessibility standards?

volunteering are you?

by pc

Wed Oct 27, 2004 15:51

off you go

no.

Wed Oct 27, 2004 16:12

it's $150 per hour.

Indymedia Website Doesn't Support All Members of the Community

by Accessiblity Is a Human Right

Wed Oct 27, 2004 16:18

access_da_web at ireland dot com

Not only is the website unusable by a disabled person to the same extent as an "able-bodied" person (whatever that means - since age is a disability), but I notice there is no language option for Shelta, the Traveller's Language. It should be included as an option like Irish or English.
Hello? "WWW" - the first "W" stands for "Worldwide" - that means everybody. There's enough social exclusion around without cyberspace helping it along.

Suggestion

by UVOX

Wed Oct 27, 2004 16:59

"PC's" comment "off you go" is the equivalent of "build your own effin' wheelchair ramp".

Nor is it necessary to pay a consultant 150 per hour.

Following basic good practices in coding is all that is required - either build them into the publishing engine on the site or write a lint that checks for accessibility features BEFORE allowing publication - rejecting anything that's not accessible and telling the writer how to fix it first.

Having conducted an accessibility review of indymedia.ie, there are different accessibility issues, some more easily fixed, and some more important, than others. It wouldn't be very easy to all meet the accessibility requirements of people with visual, motor and cognitive disabilities, but you could easily start by meeting the visual problems presented by the use of uploaded images.

In the "upload" section, why don't indymedia ENFORCE (not make optional) the ALT attribute (60 character limit) to explain briefly what's going on in the image. Image filenames are not good enough, but ALT="No Bin Tax sprayed slogan" , ALT="traveller kids on burntout JCB", would be.

The postings that contain page after page of uploaded images of street art with no comment in particular are utterly useless from an accessibility point of view. In fact, the ALT tag would be useful from an "able-bodied" viewpoint too.

Didn't you just find that David Brent comment about "Stephen Hawkings Football Boots" hilarious?

Interesting changes

by peacelover

Wed Oct 27, 2004 17:10

That's all very interesting, but it has nothing to do with the Pitstop Ploughshares, which is what this story was supposed to be about. Why don't you contact the indymedia ie 'Tech List'? I'm sure some interesting changes could be worked out regarding how the site works.
Would that not be more appropriate than derailing this thread?

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Court must be accessible too all

Comments (6 of 6)