Disablity and Access to Justice in the Ethiopian Federal Court System
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Date
2016-03
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Addis Ababa Unversity
Abstract
After the adoption of the UDHR in 1948, human rights began to be recognized and
standardized as an internationally binding norm. Subsequently different internationally
binding human right instruments came to picture. As indicated in the UDHR, there is no
discrimination among human beings in enjoying those rights recognized. Persons with
disabilities are one section of any society who seeks the protection of rights recognized in
different human rights instruments.
Up on developments of human rights conception worldwide, the world comes to have a
specific human rights instrument that considers duly the special attention and needs of
persons with disabilities. The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD)
adoption by the UN in 2006 brought a duty bearer on the state and right holder on person’s
with disabilities. One right of person’s living with disabilities is their right to access to justice
when their rights are infringed or when they serve the justice system in different capacity.
Persons with disabilities are vulnerable group in exercising their right.
In Ethiopian context, according to the Central Statistics Housing and population census
(2007) the number of persons with disabilities was 864,218 of which 464,202 are male and
400,016 Female. The disability population size is still debatable which is, partly attributed to
the loose definition of disability.1 With the existence of significant number of persons living
with disabilities, it is widely seen that when they are trying to exercise their right to access to
justice, they have to face numerous obstacles that hinder the equal exercise of right to access
to justice.
This study is therefore an effort to show the right of person with disabilities to access to
justice in the Ethiopian federal courts and to show the human rights implications of the
situation, in Ethiopia on the rights of persons with disabilities. Moreover, the human rights
1 ETHIOPIA, Implementation of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with
Disabilities (CRPD), INITIAL REPORTS: December 2012, Addis Ababa, pp. 04
awareness of the service providers at the federal courts with regard to rights of persons with
disabilities at the federal courts setting is also addressed in this study.
disabilities at the federal courts settings is also addressed in this study.