NEWSLETTER MAY '04 (editorial)

In recent years, political participation by disabled and elderly people and information accessibility to them are considered to be very important as our social background has changed; the aging of society has accelerated, normalization has been increasingly promoted, laws to prohibit discrimination against disabled people have been discussed, “Action Plans for People with Disabilities” were passed by the European Commission, and the U.N. resolution on the international convention to protect the rights of disabled people has been passed. However, their approaches towards the exercise of voting rights and participation in public systems and public information accessibility are inadequate compared to physical social infrastructure such as public facilities. This inadequacy is particularly serious in the barrier-free election process, participation by disabled people in the policy-making process, environment for disabled people, inaccessibility to public information systems, and barrier-free administrative and judicial systems.

More specifically, the European Elections this June 2004 force us to reconsider the voting procedures since they are more or less the same as they were before the advent of universal suffrage, yet virtually every other part of daily lives has changed out of all recognition. The practice of voting in public elections, the most fundamental component of our democracy, has not kept pace with social and economic changes. The expansion of new information and communication technologies into every sphere of people

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