The Right To Access To Justice For Persons With Disability In Civil Matters Before Ethiopian Federal Courts

Abstract

This paper reviews the realizations of the right to access to justice for PWD in civil matters beforeFederal Courts ln Addis Ababa.Persons with disabilities are vulnerable groups of people. Approximately one billion people or 15 percent of the global population experience some form of disability and there were 15 million PWDs in Ethiopia, representing 17.6% of the total population at the time of the study was conducted. The right to access to justice is a fundamental human right in itself and an essential means to realize another human right for PWD. In addition, the right to access to justice is the basic right for PWDs to rectify any human right violations . There are international,regional and national legislation which protect the rights of access to justice in general and United nation convention on the right of persons with disabilities in particular. To achieve the objective, the researcher used qualitative and doctrinal research method .Based on data gathered this paper found that PWD's right to access justice cannot realized in line with signed and ratified United nation convention of persons with disability due to legal as well as practical barriers. PWDs face significant problems in accessing justice because of existed outdated provision, physical unreachability of the buildings hosting the courts, communicational obstacles with the persons working in the institutions of justice; lack of accessible information, delay of proceeding, lack of available and accessable free legal aid ,lack of available training for justice organs on PWD right to accommodate them ,social attitude affect PWD; financial problem , the unwillingness of PWD to exercise their right and the nominal extent of the State on effectively discharging its obligations to realise the right to access to justice for PWD in civil cases.Accordingly, this research recommended that national laws and practical implementation on the right to access justice in civil matter should be harmonized to be in line with signed and ratified United nation convention on the right of persons with disabilities.