In Solothurn everyone should have a say

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The Federal Council decided on Friday to better integrate people with disabilities into society and the world of work. Because there is still a lot to do, for example with the political right.

A citizens’ initiative in the canton of Solothurn wants to change that. A petition is currently being collected there so that people under guardianship can also vote. In Solothurn it concerns 206 people, with 182,218 voters. So the political impact is small – it’s all about the symbolic impact.

“It’s about setting an example and drawing attention to the still strong discrimination against people with disabilities in our society,” says initiator and GLP councilor Simone Rusterholz (51). And co-initiator Lukas Paul Spichiger (20) says: “Many people are not aware that many people are still excluded from political participation.”

Simple voting documents

But there are also indirect barriers, such as when language or physical barriers make it impossible to take part in a vote. The aim of the Solothurn initiative is therefore to design election and voting documents in such a way that they are accessible to everyone and can also be understood by people with intellectual disabilities or the visually and hearing impaired. Consider, for example, translating election and voting documents into sign language or Braille.

All in all, the initiators must collect 3,000 signatures by June next year – but they hope to have them together by December. “We have already collected more than 1,000 signatures and the response from the population is always positive,” says Spichiger.

Other population groups should also benefit from this

A similar initiative was already adopted in Geneva in 2020. People on welfare are also allowed to choose and vote in all our neighboring countries. According to the initiators, similar efforts are being made in the cantons of Valais, Vaud, Bern, Thurgau, Basel-Stadt and Neuchâtel.

With the simple and clear formulation of political brochures and voting documents, it is hoped that other population groups will also participate more in elections and vote. “I hope that other people, such as people with reading difficulties, will also benefit from the initiative,” says Rusterholz.

Predicate «unsatisfactory»

The initiative does not come from a vacuum: the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), signed by Switzerland in 2014, requires people with disabilities to vote freely. But there are problems with the implementation – that became clear about a year ago in a review by the organization Inclusion Handicap.

In its report, the umbrella organization criticizes the lack of a clear strategy for the implementation of the CRPD. It starts with a still very weak anti-discrimination law. While this in itself prohibits discrimination, there is no obligation to remove the disadvantage. In other words, although discrimination is prohibited, there is no obligation to remedy disadvantages.

Source:Blick