Dear colleagues / friends / allies,
Do consider endorsing and further circulating this open letter from India's
disability movement to the Law and Justice parliamentary standing
committee.
The 'benevolent' prejudice of the first schedule of the Mediation Bill 2021
effectively sets the movement back in its bracketing of people with high
support needs, intellectual disability and mental illness along with minors
(and deities!) under the 'disputes or matters not fit for mediation' list
of people who will be denied access to this means of seeking justice.
The only ‘protection’ that we the disabled people of India need, is
safeguarding against
assaults on the validity of our personhood,
attempts to diminish our innate legal capacity
and assumptions that we are in some way lesser than the rest.
Yes, we may need reasonable accommodations. And some of us will be open
about our need for support in key life decisions.
But we are not infants, we are not divine. We are citizens (with
disabilities).
Endorse the open letter from India's disability movement, allies, allied
stakeholders and supporters to the Parliament Standing Committee urging
lawmakers to fix the First Schedule of the Mediation Bill and drop the
disability references : http://bit.ly/endorsement-form (For institutional
endorsements, please DM me)
The letter is below for reading convenience - access the public link with
updated signatory list at http://bit.ly/fix-mediation-bill
Do share this and get other people's movements to stand by us!
*VAISHNAVI JAYAKUMAR*
http://about.me/vjayakumar
-----------
Open Letter to Parliamentary Standing Committee (Personnel, Public
Grievances, Law and Justice) on the Draft Mediation Bill 2021
<https://legalaffairs.gov.in/sites/default/files/mediation-bill-2021.pdf>.
It is a case where the left hand does not know what the right is doing.
India ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities
within months of its coming into force. We have since then replaced our
older laws on disability rights and mental health to bring them in harmony
with the UN Convention. A common feature in all these legal instruments was
the recognition of persons with disabilities as persons before the law —
possessed of legal capacity on an equal basis with others. A logical
consequence of this position is that whenever any law is made for the
people of the country, it will as much extend to persons with disabilities.
Any law excluding persons with disabilities would be in breach of both the
country’s international commitment and its national laws. Yet the Mediation
Bill 2021 has excluded a range of persons with disabilities from the
purview of the Mediation law as if to say these path-breaking rights
affirming efforts never happened.
Mediation, unlike adjudication, is supposed to be a win-win, give and take
exercise. It operates on the principle that both society and people benefit
when disputes are peaceably resolved. Yet any legal proceedings against
persons with intellectual disability or persons with mental illness or
persons with high support needs have been kept out of the purview of this
law. Other people’s unhappiness or disagreement with them cannot be
peaceably settled, be it in individual or community mediation. No one can
be compelled to go for mediation and this non compulsion would as much
apply to people with disabilities as to others .
>From such a framing of the bill it appears as though people with
disabilities either do not have any requirement for mediation or their
representation or need for mediation is dispensable. What the law has done
is that it has denied to persons with disabilities the option to settle
disputes amicably. With this one act these persons with disabilities have
been rendered invisible by the law. When people are barred from having any
grievance against any member of a community then people prefer to have
nothing to do with them : they are shunned or socially ostracised. Yet the UN
Convention and our national laws speak about giving all persons with
disabilities the right to live independently and in the community. So who
will solve their disputes if they have any? Or will they continue to either
be socially ostracised or face continued prejudice and violence of diverse
sorts?
The lawmakers of the country are expected to make law with full knowledge
and understanding of what they have the power to do and not do. To honour
the international commitments of the country and not override special laws
through general laws is a part of the commitment. Furthermore, it is in
order to enable course correction and ensure that laws made are not opposed
to the interests of the people; that rules for pre-legislative public
participation <https://legislative.gov.in/sites/default/files/plcp.pdf>
have been formulated. The rules require that at least a period of 30 days
must be given to the people to offer their comments and suggestions. Even
that period has been unilaterally cut down to fifteen days by the
Parliamentary Standing Committee
<https://rajyasabha.nic.in/rsnew/Committee_site/Committee_File/Press_ReleaseFile/18/164/461P_2022_1_10.pdf>.
So, the doors of the Standing Committee have been shut on us even before
the invitation to participate could reach us.
Clause 7
<https://legalaffairs.gov.in/sites/default/files/mediation-bill-2021.pdf#page=8>
of the Bill read along with Schedule 1
<https://legalaffairs.gov.in/sites/default/files/mediation-bill-2021.pdf#page=23>
ought to be closely examined so that stigma prevailing against persons with
disabilities is not mechanically reinforced by the law. Through this open
letter we are conveying our dismay to the Parliamentary Standing Committee
and urge it to fulfil its duties in both letter and spirit by recommending
that schedule 1 of the Bill be duly amended.
Ignorance of the law is no excuse - neither for the people nor for the
governors.
------------------------------
Endorsed on 17 February 2022 by
-
AMITA DHANDA (Professor Emerita, NALSAR Hyderabad)
-
PRATEEKSHA SHARMA (Peer psychotherapist, Founder Bright Side Family
Counselling Centre)
-
DISABILITY RIGHTS ALLIANCE (DRA)
-
NATIONAL CENTRE FOR PROMOTION OF EMPLOYMENT FOR DISABLED PEOPLE (NCPEDP)
-
NATIONAL PLATFORM FOR THE RIGHTS OF THE DISABLED
-
PASCHIM BANGA RAJYA PRATHIBANDHI SAMMELANI
-
TAMILNADU ASSOCIATION FOR RIGHTS OF DIFFERENTLY-ABLED & CAREGIVERS
-
DIFFERENTLY-ABLED WELFARE FEDERATION, KERALA
-
VIKALANGULA HAKKULA JATHIYA VEDIKA, TELANGANA
-
VIKALANGULA HAKKULA JATHIYA VEDIKA, AP
-
HARYANA VIKLANG ADHIKAR MANCH, HARYANA
-
KARNATAKA RAJYA ANGAVIKALARA MATTU PALAKARA OKKOTA
-
TRIPURA PRATHIBANDHI ADHIKAR MANCH
-
GUJARAT VIKLANG ADHIKAR MANCH
-
LAKSHWADEEP DISABLED ASSOCIATION
-
MADHYA PRADESH VIKLANG ADHIKAR MANCH
-
JHARKHAND VIKLANG MORCHA
-
DELHI VIKLANG ADHIKAR MANCH
-
TEAM EKTHA
-
DECEMBER 3 MOVEMENT
-
EQUALS CENTRE FOR PROMOTION OF SOCIAL JUSTICE (EQUALS CPSJ)
-
SHISHU SAROTHI
-
VIDYA SAGAR
-
BAPU TRUST
-
VAISHNAVI JAYAKUMAR (Co-Founder The Banyan, Member Disability Rights
Alliance)
-
SUDHA RAMAMOORTHY (Equals Centre for Promotion of Social Justice)
-
DR. ANJLEE AGARWAL (Executive Director, Samarthyam / Member, NITI Aayog
[CSO-SC])
-
POONAM NATARAJAN (Founder Vidya Sagar)
-
SATHISH KUMAR (Member Disability Rights Alliance)
-
MEENAKSHI BALASUBRAMANIAN (Co-founder Equals Centre for Promotion of
Social Justice)
-
DR V JANAKI, CHENNAI
-
SANGEETA ISVARAN
-
T M RAMANA RAO
-
KARTHIK
-
DR. SRINIVAS GOLI (Medical Officer, North Delhi Municipal Corporation)
-
ARMAN ALI (Executive Director, NCPEDP)
-
UMMUL KHAIR (Advocate with disability, Member DRA)
-
RADHA RAMESH (Director, Vidya Sagar)
-
DR MS KETNA MEHTA (Founder Trustee, Nina Foundation)
-
RAJESH (Accessibility consultant)
-
VIDHYA RAMASUBBAN
-
DR SATENDRA SINGH (Doctors with Disabilities: Agents of Change)
-
LV JAYASHREE (Director, The Spastics Society of Tamil Nadu)
-
GOPINATH RAMAKRISHNAN (Managing Trustee, Special Child Assistance
Network [SCAN])
-
RAMANATHAN G
-
RAJUL PADMANABHAN
-
SMITHA SADASIVAN
-
P RAJASEKHARAN (Co-founder, v-shesh)
-
DR. LALITHKUMAR NATARAJAN (Love and Acceptance & Tamil Nadu Spinal Cord
Disabilities Association)
-
PROF. YASMIN SULTANA (Head Pharmaceutics, SPER, Jamia Hamdard)
-
MOHD FAISAL NAWAZ (Disability Rights Activist)
-
PAWAN KUMAR MUNTHA (CEO, Swadhikaar)
.
.
.
*[ EVOLVING PUBLIC DOCUMENT WITH UPDATED
SIGNATORIES http://bit.ly/fix-mediation-bill
<http://bit.ly/fix-mediation-bill> ]*
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