Submission of the New Zealand Human Rights Commission to the 18 th session of the Human Rights Council; New Zealand’s Second Universal Periodic Review. Section 52 of the Human Rights Act 1993 19. Section 52 of the HRA effectively creates a requirement of reasonable accommodation in relation to the provision of facilities and services. In 2008 the Disability (United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities) Bill was passed to enable ratification of the CRPD. Through this process no amendments were made to section 52 of the HRA. 20. Section 52 provides for an individual proportionality analysis - on a case by case basis - with a focus on the type of accommodation requested against the requisite burden of the individual. On this basis it was considered that section 52 complied with the CRPD. 21. In Smith v Air New Zealand Ltd8 the Court of Appeal considered the definition of “reasonable accommodation” in article 2 of the Convention and confirmed that section 52 was consistent with that definition. The Commission agrees with this assessment. 22. However, in practice a lack of understanding of the need for reasonable accommodation and the lack of competence to apply the principles of reasonable accommodation remains an issue and is at the heart of many complaints and enquiries in both the public and private sector. This is due, in part, to the absence of a clear over arching definition of reasonable accommodation in the HRA. The Commission believes that the interests of disabled people would be better served if the HRA contained a general obligation to accommodate disability and a definition of reasonable accommodation. 23. The government has noted that the Ministry of Justice is currently developing guidance on reasonable accommodation for public activities. The Commission is concerned that there has been little progress on this work. Women with Disabilities (art. 6) Programmes designed to support women with disabilities in employment, combating violence and other aspects of life 24. In its response to the LOI, the government has provided a comprehensive list of programmes aimed at supporting women and girls with disabilities. However, it should be noted that only one project included in the “It’s Not OK” and “Think Differently” programme is tailored to disabled women. No programme is tailored to disabled girls. The “Voice Against Violence” work is limited to Girl Guiding. There is potential for this type of initiative to be rolled out across all schools (primary and secondary) and joined up with the national Bullying Prevention and Family Violence Prevention work. 8 [2011] NZCA 20 6