The number of new complaints filed last year with the Commission for the Rights of People with Disability doubled over the previous 12 months.
According to CRPD’s Equal Opportunities report, during the year 2015/2016 the commission worked on 424 complaints – 248 of which were new.
During the previous year, 124 new complaints were filed, tallying with the annual average of 118 complaints a year during the past 16 years, since the introduction of the Equal Opportunities Act.
Before this past year, the highest number of new complaints investigated was that of 172 in 2008/2009.
For Commissioner Oliver Scicluna, the substantial increase in the number of complaints was a result of increasing public awareness on rights.
The Act offers protection against health discrimination
This is CRPD’s first report since recent amendments to the Act that saw the inclusion of 14 rights primarily inspired by the UN Convention on the Rights of People with Disability.
This means that those rights that Malta promised to safeguard when it ratified the convention can now be fully enjoyed.
The Equal Opportunities Act now also offers protection against discrimination in health, and this sector is to be treated separate from the provision of goods, facilities and services.
The accessibility sector was the one for which the commission received the most new complaints throughout the year – going up by 68 to a total of 131. One of the closed cases was that of an electricity pole in Saint Luke’s Street in Pietà which was placed in the middle of the pavement, hindering accessibility.
The Commission contacted Enemalta and demanded immediate action.
Another case, which ended in court, started in 2003 when Birkirkara’s Saint Anthony’s Band Club was still not open to the public. Though the building had a lift shaft, a lift was never installed, so the floors of the club were not accessible to all.
The Commission made several attempts to keep in touch with the club, and even sent technical officials five times on site. By 2016, the lift was still not installed and the commission opened a court case.
The judgment was in favour of the Commission, and the club was ordered to make the necessary arrangements within three months. The club appealed the sentence.
GO’s intranet and BOV’s phone banking facility, which were inaccessible or complicated for people with visual impairment, also featured in the list of cases which have now been closed.