In a column published on July 15 in “Le Journal du Dimanche”, the Secretary of State in charge of disabled people, Sophie Cluzel, defends the “unconditional” right to vote for people with intellectual disabilities placed under guardianship. A measure which concerns 350,000 people in France.
On July 9, during his speech at the Congress of Versailles, Emmanuel Macron mentioned the opening of the “unconditional” right to vote to people with mental and psychological disabilities placed under supervision. This will be done soon.
Sunday July 15, Sophie Cluzel, Secretary of State for Disabled People, signed a platform in the JDD to also call for the opening of the right to vote to disabled people under guardianship, and this “without conditions”.
“In France, today, nearly 350,000 people with mental or mental disabilities do not have the right to vote because a supervisory judge has declared them unfit to participate in civic life by virtue of article L5 of the electoral code” , deplores the Secretary of State, who recalls that “this unjust situation is denounced by large associations and national and international institutions such as the National Consultative Commission on Human Rights, the defender of rights or the UN”.
“A great victory for people with disabilities”
Indeed, as recalled Le Figaro, by virtue of article 5 of the electoral code, a judge can suspend the right to vote to the adults placed under guardianship. This may in particular concern people with disabilities who are unable to express themselves. Until 2009, the judge’s opinion on whether or not to maintain the right to vote was compulsory. From now on, the right to vote of disabled people under guardianship is enshrined, unless the judge advises otherwise.
Already last February, Sophie Cluzel spoke on this subject in the columns of the Figaro by expressing its desire to delete article 5 of the electoral code. “It would perhaps be enough to repeal this article L5 to allow people with disabilities to regain all their dignity as human beings (…) with their civic rights, that is to say the right to vote”, had she declared.
The explicit support of Emmanuel Macron, expressed before the parliamentarians meeting in Versailles is perceived by Sophie Cluzel as “a great victory for people with disabilities and their families, who have been fighting for more than thirty years to recognize the unconditional nature of the right to vote”. “From now on, people with disabilities will no longer have to fear losing their right to vote on the grounds, for example of an inability to speak,” she wrote in the JDD.
“The will and the possibility of expressing one’s choices do not depend on a level of economic, cultural or social independence or on a level of knowledge but come from the intrinsic quality of the human being. We are not born equal. before the laws of life, but the laws of the Republic must allow us to become and remain so. The disabled person is a person before being disabled and must be able to live his life with dignity and choose his destiny. Too often forgotten , people with disabilities will be able, thanks to this right to vote, to make their voice heard on the public policies which concern them “, wrote Sophie Cluzel. “This first recognition is a major step,” says the Secretary of State, who promises other inclusion projects to come: school, university, the world of work and everyday life.
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