NATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION OF KOREA Submission to the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities – July 2022 Article 13 Access to Justice 13-1 Effective implementation of Article 26 of the Act on the Prohibition of Disability Discrimination □ Current status and problems ㅇ Recently, the Constitutional Court ruled that recognizing the videos recording statement of a juvenile victim of sexual violence during the process of investigation violates the right to defend the defendants and is against the Constitution.14 This logic can be applied to victims of sexual violence who has disabilities, and this is against Article 12 (3) and Article 13 (1) of the Convention. In addition, due to the aforementioned decision, disabled victims of sexual violence have to appear in court to testify and thus there is a severe concern about victims’ return to daily life and secondary damage. ㅇ Article 26(6) of the Disability Discrimination Prohibition Act prescribes that a judicial institution shall confirm whether a person related to a case has a disability in communication or expression of opinion, and inform the right to receive assistance and content thereof. The problem is that for persons with psychosocial disabilities, the disability to communicate or express intention is not identified immediately in some cases, making the notification itself difficult. As a result, in many cases, persons with disabilities often fail to exercise their rights in judicial procedures. ㅇ The government operates a dedicated investigation system for persons with developmental disabilities(dedicated police officer), but the disability community questions whether this is more appropriate to investigate various crimes related to persons with developmental disabilities because there are problems such as changed jurisdiction or delays in handling cases to utilize the dedicated investigation system, the focus is on women and juveniles, and in many cases, it is difficult to confirm expertise. However, the National Police Agency replied that education material or guidelines for the investigation of victims are directly related to its work and cannot be disclosed. 24