In 2012 Office for the rights of persons with disabilities took part and assisted in several precedential trials in the sphere of protection of the rights of persons with disabilities. All the trials were won by the claimants – persons with disabilities who tried to protect their rights. In some time after the trials we asked the claimants “What happened after the trial had been finished and if the judgments were enforced?”

Khaletskiy’s case: labour relations

Prepared by the Office for the rights of persons with disabilities.

Monitoring of citizens’ appeals.

Period: December 2012

56 appeals were received from December 1 till December 31 2012 by the Office for the rights of persons with disabilities.
27 appeals were taken for further more detailed consideration by the Office’s lawyers.

Appeals in numbers.

Public association “Belarusian society of disabled” and Common union of German disabled “For self-determination and dignity” have started the realization of joint project “Inclusive social space for common good”. This is an educational project and pursues two main goals.

First of all, it is the advanced training of “BSD’s” activists at regional and local levels. BSD’s activists will work together with German experts on “peer-counseling” principle, because German experts are also disabled.

On December 13 another hearing of Khaletskiy’s case took place after the cassational appeal filed by the Defendant “Avtozavodskoi” and cassational protest by the prosecutor in cassational instance of Minsk city court. But during the hearing the prosecutor’s appeal was withdrawn. The cassational appeal by the defendant was considered but the court’s decision was left without changes.

We remind, that Khaletskiy’s case hearing took place on September 24, 2012 and the court completely supported the claimant.

On December 7 participants of the project “Barrier-free environment monitoring” ran tests of the instrument for monitoring the accessibility of architectural objects. This time they tested new station of Minsk subway “Petrovschina” and movie theatre “Berest’e”. Because of the weather conditions the participant didn’t manage to test the ground route between the two objects, the snow had changed their planes.

Members of coalition “Accessibility”, representatives of “Belarusian society of deaf”, specialists in barrier-free environment of “Minskmetrostroi” and “Minsk subway”, journalists of Minsk mass-media took part in the monitoring.

Andrew Halsey from Britain was invited by his friends and came to visit Belarus to tell how being a person with disability and having the diagnosis “epilepsy” one can live a full life and even to perform extreme personal deeds. In 1997 Andrew Halsey took a rowing lesson, several times rowed upon the Mercy river and then alone crossed the Atlantic Ocean from Tenerife to Sent-Lucia island in West-India, having rowed 4800 km. in 116 days. In 1999 he decided to cross the Pacific Ocean from California to Australia. But after 267 days, having lost 30 kilos of weight, because of bad weather conditions and lack of food he admitted that he couldn’t continue the trip.

Press-conference devoted to the International day of persons with disabilities was held at National press-center on November 27. Speakers of the event were representatives of ministries, departments and NGOs supervising the sphere of disability in the Republic of Belarus: Razhanets A.A. (ministry of labour and social protection), Zmushko A.M. (ministry of education), Zhudina T.I. (“Inkotech”), Leschinskaia T.M. (RSPC of medical expertise and rehabilitation), Chutkova I.A. (deputy of the representative of Children’s fund (UNICEF), Drozdovskiy S.E.

This statement was made by the coordinator of the Office for the rights of persons with disabilities Sergei Drozdovskiy at the presentation of public opinion poll, aimed at finding out different aspects of attitude towards persons with disabilities. The poll was held by Independent institute of socio-economic and political studies (IISEPS) in fall 2012 and was initiated by the Office for the rights of persons with disabilities.

December 3 – is the International day of persons with disabilities. The United Nations (UN) proclaimed the 3rd December as the International Day of Persons with Disabilities and every year this day has a new theme. The theme that should point out the most important direction of society’s development which should influence the state’s politics and make the society understand its role and each person’s role in the possibility to change the world to better.

Creation and observance of the norms of barrier-free environment is one of the most important goals of the organizations dealing with the problems of disability. Unfortunately, in our society this problem hasn’t been solved yet.