NHRC issues recommendation for remedial measures to allow disabled people priority in choosing a school equipped with facilities for the disabled, and toward the minimization of inconvenience to the disabled
The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) issued a recommendation to the superintendent of Kwangju Metropolitan City (1) to speedily install within K Middle school, which lacked an elevator and ramps for disabled people, facilities for the disabled consistent with the 2nd announcement of the “Enforcement Decree of the Act Regarding Promotion of Facilities Ensuring Access for the Disabled, the Aged, and Pregnant and Nursing Women” and (2) to undertake measures such that until the school’s facilities are fully installed, disabled newly appointed/entering and transferring teachers and students have priority in choosing a school equipped with such facilities. Also included was a recommendation that the principal of Kwangju K. Middle School make adjustments to the assignment of homerooms and classrooms in the facilities as they are now so as to minimize inconvenience to the disabled.
The recommendation came about as the result of a complaint filed by Mr. Lee, a disabled teacher who had incurred osteoarthritis (degenerative joint disease, or “wear-and-tear arthritis”) over his 26-year tenure at K. Middle School in Kwangju Metropolitan City, in January 2003 against the Kwangju Metropolitan City Superintendent and the principal of K. Middle School for compensation and installation of facilities enabling access for disabled people.
The origins of the case can be traced to 1971, when Mr. Lee suffered a leg injury from a car accident and, over the course of his 26 years of teaching at Kwangju K. Middle School (public school)—a five-story building lacking elevators and other facilities enabling access for the disabled—incurred osteoarthritis after countless climbing of stairs at work, thus inspiring Mr. Lee to file a complaint with the NHRC.
The NHRC investigation found that article 4 of the Act Regarding Promotion of Facilities Ensuring Access for the Disabled, the Aged, and Pregnant and Nursing Women explicitly stipulated that: “In order to ensure the pursuit of human dignity and value as well as happiness of the disabled, disabled persons have the right to use facilities and equipment that non-disabled persons can use without assistance from another person, and the right to freely access information that non-disabled persons have access to without assistance from another person.”
Taking into consideration the fact that K. Middle School, in lacking critical facilities such as an elevator or ramps, had failed to ensure access for disabled people, the NHRC had, consistent with the “recommendation of remedial measures” article (article 44: clause 1: paragraph 1) of the NHRC Act, issued the recommendation for the disabled to be able to choose a school equipped with facilities for the disabled and for the school to reshuffle homerooms and classrooms so as to minimize inconvenience in order to give actual assistance to disabled people until an elevator and ramps were installed.
