Access to Justice for Women with Intellectual or Psychosocial Disabilities
Petra Angelina, 37, self-advocate for the rights of persons with disabilities. Photo: UN Women/Lauren Rooney
To make justice for all a reality, we must put front and centre those who find it hardest to access justice. Women with disabilities are among those who encounter the greatest justice obstacles, yet have some of the greatest justice needs. Women with intellectual or psychosocial disabilities face a complex set of barriers to justice due to restrictions on their legal capacity, lack of equal recognition before the law, and questions about their credibility by justice actors and community members.
Justice for all means disability-inclusive justice
A shift towards gender and disability-inclusive justice starts with empowering women with intellectual or psychosocial disabilities to voice their legal needs, participate in the design of justice solutions, and promote open and transparent justice mechanisms where diverse partners, such as disability support persons, can play a role. Together, we can rethink justice with the lived experience of women with disabilities at its core, to ensure justice for all by 2030 that leaves no one behind.
The right to access to justice for persons with disabilities is enshrined in the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). The CRPD recognizes that women and girls with disabilities face multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination, and that additional measures should be taken to ensure their rights.
Article 6: Women with disabilities
States Parties recognize that women and girls with disabilities are subject to multiple discrimination, and in this regard shall take measures to ensure the full and equal enjoyment by them of all human rights and fundamental freedoms.
States Parties shall take all appropriate measures to ensure the full development, advancement and empowerment of women, for the purpose of guaranteeing them the exercise and enjoyment of the human rights and fundamental freedoms set out in the present Convention.
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Article 12: Equal recognition before the law
States Parties reaffirm that persons with disabilities have the right to recognition everywhere as persons before the law.
States Parties shall recognize that persons with disabilities enjoy legal capacity on an equal basis with others in all aspects of life.
States Parties shall take appropriate measures to provide access by persons with disabilities to the support they may require in exercising their legal capacity.
States Parties shall ensure that all measures that relate to the exercise of legal capacity provide for appropriate and effective safeguards to prevent abuse in accordance with international human rights law. Such safeguards shall ensure that measures relating to the exercise of legal capacity respect the rights, will and preferences of the person, are free of conflict of interest and undue influence, are proportional and tailored to the person's circumstances, apply for the shortest time possible and are subject to regular review by a competent, independent and impartial authority or judicial body. The safeguards shall be proportional to the degree to which such measures affect the person's rights and interests.
Subject to the provisions of this article, States Parties shall take all appropriate and effective measures to ensure the equal right of persons with disabilities to own or inherit property, to control their own financial affairs and to have equal access to bank loans, mortgages and other forms of financial credit, and shall ensure that persons with disabilities are not arbitrarily deprived of their property.
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Article 13: Access to justice
States Parties shall ensure effective access to justice for persons with disabilities on an equal basis with others, including through the provision of procedural and age-appropriate accommodations, in order to facilitate their effective role as direct and indirect participants, including as witnesses, in all legal proceedings, including at investigative and other preliminary stages.
In order to help to ensure effective access to justice for persons with disabilities, States Parties shall promote appropriate training for those working in the field of administration of justice, including police and prison staff.
