MeAC – Measuring Progress of eAccessibility in Europe

Policy approaches based on equality / anti-discrimination legislation have considerable potential in the eAccessibility field. Such approaches can provide people with disabilities – individually or collectively – with a right to seek redress if they are confronted with inaccessible ICT equipment or services, either in relation to ICT-based goods and services in a general sense or in relation to specific usage contexts.

Legislation/regulations

The Act 1998. XXVI on The Rights of Disabled [People] and on Ensuring Their Equality is the legal framework for the disability issue in Hungary. It stipulates aims, principles and tasks in the field of disability. It addresses eAccessibility by defining that disabled persons have a right to an adequate environment, communications, transport, employment, special assistance and special tools. There appears to be a specific reference to eAccessibility in the Law in so far as it explicitly defines “accessible information” as information which is “perceptible and comprehensible by the disabled”, however this is framework legislation and there are no specific regulations related to it.

The Act 2003. CXXV on Promoting Equal Treatment and Equality implements the EU Equality Directives. In relation to disability, it has a wider scope in that it covers both employment and public services, including ‘client-based’ services available to the public.  There is no direct attention to eAccessibility and the reasonable accommodation approach seems under-developed. The law also stipulates what kind of sanctions the Equal Treatment Authority (Egyenlő Bánásmód Hatóság) can impose in case of violation of equal treatment. The Equal Treatment Authority helps to sue public institutions in case of any violation of equal treatment and equality.

Goods and services equality

The Act on equal treatment (2003) covers public services and ‘client-based’ services available to the public; it is not clear to what extent it might cover goods available to the public. In addition, the 1998 Act on the Rights of Disabled People was to be amended to include public services. Guidelines issued by the Equal Treatment Advisory Body (2006) on the accessibility of the built environment state that failure to provide an accessible environment constitutes direct discrimination.

Employment equality

The 1998 Act on the Rights of Disabled Persons, as amended, is the disability-specific legislation providing that disabled persons shall, if possible, be employed in integrated employment. The Act of 2003 on Promoting Equal Treatment and Equality implements the EU Employment Equality Directive, however the transposition of the EU Directive does not appear to have included ‘reasonable accommodation’. Under the 1998 Disabled Persons Act, an employer is obliged to provide accommodation at the workplace for a disabled employee, once employed.

Impacts – cases and other activity

A case was brought to the Equal Treatment Authority by the National Association of the Blind and People with Bad Sight. The Association complained about inaccessible library services including that the electronic catalogue was not usable by a screen reader. An agreement was reached to improve assistance to blind library users.

To avoid SPAM-abuse of the e-mail address the ‘@’ sign was written as ‘a t’ and each dot ‘.’ as ‘d o t’.
Please change the recipient address of your message accordingly. We apologize for this inconvenience.