CRPD/C/GC/2
resources to ensure effective implementation. Another common challenge has been the lack
of training provided to the relevant stakeholders and insufficient involvement of persons
with disabilities and their representative organizations in the process of ensuring access to
the physical environment, transport, information and communication.
11.
The Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities has also addressed the
issue of accessibility in its jurisprudence. In the case of Nyusti and Takács v. Hungary
(communication No. 1/2010, Views adopted on 16 April 2013), the Committee was of the
view that all services open or provided to the public must be accessible in accordance with
the provisions of article 9 of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. The
State party was called upon to ensure that blind persons had access to automatic teller
machines (ATMs). The Committee recommended, inter alia, that the State party establish
“minimum standards for the accessibility of banking services provided by private financial
institutions for persons with visual and other types of impairments; … create a legislative
framework with concrete, enforceable and time-bound benchmarks for monitoring and
assessing the gradual modification and adjustment by private financial institutions of
previously inaccessible banking services provided by them into accessible ones; … and
ensure that all newly procured ATMs and other banking services are fully accessible for
persons with disabilities” (para. 10.2 (a)).
12.
Given these precedents and the fact that accessibility is indeed a vital precondition
for persons with disabilities to participate fully and equally in society and enjoy effectively
all their human rights and fundamental freedoms, the Committee finds it necessary to adopt
a general comment on article 9 of the Convention on accessibility, in accordance with its
rules of procedure and the established practice of the human rights treaty bodies.
II. Normative content
13.
Article 9 of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities stipulates that,
“to enable persons with disabilities to live independently and participate fully in all aspects
of life, States parties shall take appropriate measures to ensure to persons with disabilities
access, on an equal basis with others, to the physical environment, to transportation, to
information and communication, including information and communication technologies
and systems, and to other facilities and services open or provided to the public, both in
urban and in rural areas”. It is important that accessibility is addressed in all its complexity,
encompassing the physical environment, transportation, information and communication,
and services. The focus is no longer on legal personality and the public or private nature of
those who own buildings, transport infrastructure, vehicles, information and
communication, and services. As long as goods, products and services are open or provided
to the public, they must be accessible to all, regardless of whether they are owned and/or
provided by a public authority or a private enterprise. Persons with disabilities should have
equal access to all goods, products and services that are open or provided to the public in a
manner that ensures their effective and equal access and respects their dignity. This
approach stems from the prohibition against discrimination; denial of access should be
considered to constitute a discriminatory act, regardless of whether the perpetrator is a
public or private entity. Accessibility should be provided to all persons with disabilities,
regardless of the type of impairment, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour,
sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth
or other status, legal or social status, gender or age. Accessibility should especially take into
account the gender and age perspectives for persons with disabilities.
14.
Article 9 of the Convention clearly enshrines accessibility as the precondition for
persons with disabilities to live independently, participate fully and equally in society, and
have unrestricted enjoyment of all their human rights and fundamental freedoms on an
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