NATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION OF KOREA
Submission to the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities – July 2022
Disabilities, Senior Citizens, Pregnant Women and Nursing Mothers and Enforcement
Decree include child care centers and child-welfare center as park and child related
facilities subject to installation of convenience facilities, but ‘playground’ is not included.
However, commissioner Lee Jong Seok of the Committee on Health and Welfare of the
National Assembly proposed a partial amendment to the Act on Safety Management of
Playing Facilities for Child on June 27, 2021 to lay a legal foundation for inclusive
playgrounds for children with and without disabilities.
9
According to the 2021 Fact-finding Survey on Web Accessibility(National Information
Society Agency), when websites accessibility compliance of 1,000 website was
investigated, only 46 received 95 or more points and 723 received lower than 75 points,
showing lack of compliance.
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In particular, the government announced a plan for “preventive” cohort quarantine for
facilities where people with disabilities reside in groups, such as closed wards of the
mental hospital, residential facilities for the disabled and nursing hospitals, without
providing proper quarantine support or checking for separate space for isolation in the
case of confirmed patients. However, the very first death due to COVID-19 occurred in
a cohort quarantined mental hospital and there were a number of other group infections.
11
Korea’s guardianship system is comprised of adult guardianship, limited guardianship,
specific guardianship and voluntary guardianship. Among them, the adult guardianship
which grants comprehensive authority to guardians is substituted for decision-making,
and although there is a controversy over the limited guardianship and specific
guardianship, current implementation shows that they can hardly be regarded as
supported decision-making under the Convention given that the will and preference of
the person concerned stipulated as the essence of support decision-making in General
Comment No. 1 of the Convention is not properly reflected, it is difficult for the person
concerned to deny support and terminate or change support relations at any-time, and
it is decided based on the assessment of their ability to make decisions.
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Receipt and handling of cases per guardianship type
Division
Number of Receipt
Number of Handling
Adult
Limited
Specific
Voluntary
Adult
Limited
Specific
Voluntary
guardianship
guardianship
guardianship
guardianship
guardianship
guardianship
guardianship
guardianship
2015
3010
283
179
8
2493
260
292
10
2016
3716
282
158
17
3420
298
129
13
2017
4571
897
464
26
4572
708
354
28
2018
5927
742
520
15
5603
914
529
13
2019
6984
746
759
30
6831
768
660
25
2020
8180
830
917
26
7832
805
940
28
2021
8670
834
939
28
8464
829
937
24
Year
Source: Judicial Yearbook, March 15, 2022, electric data
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Case 1. The Cheongju District Court, in a lawsuit filed by a person with a grade 2
intellectual disability by appointing a lawyer, ruled that the lawsuit filed by him and
appointment of a lawyer is invalid because he is a person lacking litigation capacity as
he is a person devoid of mental capacity due to grade 2 disabilities, without detailed
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judgment(Cheongju District Court 2017GaHap203616).