From multiple barriers to a co-prosperity society: the development of a legal system for disabled people in China

Abstract

The legal system for disabled people has progressed significantly since China’s government signed the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities 10 years ago. The newly released ‘New Progress in the Legal Protection of Human Rights in China’ has attracted widespread attention because it advocates that the protection of human rights for disabled people should be reflected not only in legislative and judicial aspects but also in administrative sectors and international affairs. This article explains that the legal system involving dozens of laws and decrees in China aims to break through multiple barriers experienced by disabled persons and is beneficial to building a co-prosperity society in China. With the vigorous development of the international disability rights movement, ways to seize domestic and international opportunities to build a disabled-friendly social atmosphere deserve additional research.

Keywords:

• disabilities
• multiple barriers
• co-prosperity society
• legal system
• China

Introduction

There are currently more than 85 million disabled people in China; more than 15 million of these individuals continue to live below the national poverty line, accounting for more than 12% of China’s total poverty. Can disability rights laws in 2017 have positive effects in these circumstances? The protection of disability rights and the development of these protections have become important issues for China’s governance as well as key points in building a co-prosperity society.

Existing articles discussing China’s provision for disabled people mainly focus on policy issues (Zhao and Zhang 2017). However, the legal system is the most important foundation and strongest support for all policies. Without a systematic review of the legal system covering disability, it is difficult to understand the overall picture of China’s system for protecting the rights of disabled persons. Meanwhile, although scholars believe that the channels of expression for disabled people became increasingly diversified in recent years (Zhang 2017), due to social system differences, disabled people’s organizations are still weak in China. Additionally, different from the strong bottom-up participation model of western countries, China’s security system for disabled people is a government-led model.

Since the implementation of the Law on the Protection of Disabled People in 1991, China’s protections for disabled people have progressed not only at the policy level but also at the legislative level and have gradually infiltrated into more aspects of governance. This article focuses on how the law-based protection of disabled persons in China breaks through multiple barriers, and gradually allows them to share in the profit of economic and social development, as well as on how it potentially impacts the establishment of a co-prosperity society.

New progress in legal protection of the human rights of disabled people

The State Council Information Office released a white paper entitled ‘New Progress in the Legal Protection of Human Rights in China’ in December 2017. This document includes promoting law-based protection of citizens, consolidating social mechanisms for the legal protection of human rights, and improving the development of global human rights under the rule of law.

It is worth noting that this white paper emphasizes the legal guarantee of rights for disabled people. The report goes from strengthening legislation on the protection of the rights of disabled people to actively participating in the formulation of international rules and earnestly implementing international obligations. As opposed to the traditional protection of special groups advocated at the policy level in the past, this latest report is an important programmatic document that deserves attention because it is about the ‘protection of human rights by law’, and it advocates that the protection of human rights for disabled people should not only be reflected in the legislative and judicial process but also in administrative enforcement and international affairs. This newest change in the legal system has drawn wide attention from Chinese politicians, academia, non-governmental organizations, and groups representing disabled people, and provides a critical case for us to understand the legal system and protection of the rights of disabled people in contemporary China.

This latest white paper specifically mentions the social basis for safeguarding disabled people’s rights in China for the first time and clearly demonstrates the critical role of bottom-up social construction for legal protection, which is fully consistent with the principles advocated by the social model of disability (Oliver 2013). First, the construction and legalization of social self-governing organizations have provided new driving forces to the law-based protection of disabled people. In recent years, self-help organizations for disabled people have played an important role in rights protection, education and training, employment guidance, and so forth. Second, the construction of social norms broadens the vision of the legal protection of human rights, including not only the ‘hard power’ of the national legal system but also the ‘soft power’ of social autonomy, which aims to create a social atmosphere friendly to disabled people.

The construction of a legal system protecting disability rights in China

For developing countries like China, the legislation for disabled people lags behind, and the bottom-up driving forces remain limited, while the government usually plays the leading role in law-making and policy agenda-setting.

Continuous improvement in the legal system has allowed disabled people’s rights to be better defended over the past 10 years. In 2016, the Supreme People’s Court of China released samples of 10 typical cases involving disability rights protection in which disabled people have effectively defended their health, labor, inheritance, and property rights.

For instance, a visually impaired girl named Lina Dong applied for the higher education self-study examination in Beijing in January and July 2011, but both applications were rejected. To defend her educational rights, she wrote to the Beijing Municipal Education Commission to request that the government listen to the voices of disabled people and protect their equal rights to education. One newspaper reported this event and her dilemma on 30 September. Due to the attention and sustained efforts of Miss Dong and the public, on 26 October, the Beijing Education Examinations Authority declared that visually impaired people could sign up for future self-study examinations held in Beijing and promised to provide such individuals with the most appropriate test conditions. On 17 December, the head of the Policy and Law Department of China’s Ministry of Education declared that the government would more strongly express that ‘education institutions should provide special arrangements for disabled people when they participate in any national examinations’ in the newest revision of the ‘People with Disabilities Education Ordinance’. This event further promoted the promulgation of ‘Regulations on Disabled People’s Participation in College and University Enrolment Exams’ in 2015; these regulations clearly declared that the government should provide equal opportunities and reasonable accommodations for disabled people to participate in college entrance examinations, marking the first time that the Chinese government formally embodied the ‘reasonable accommodations’ advocated by the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in a legal document. In 2017, 5626 disabled students applied for reasonable accommodations; such accommodations provided better opportunities for these students to receive higher education and thus contributed to building a more inclusive, fair, and guaranteed educational environment for disabled people.

However, due to resource scarcity, the immature civil society, and regional differences, there is still a gap between law and practice (Williams et al. 2018). Street-level bureaucracy has great discretion which can easily lead to differences between regions. The existing legal system has not paid enough attention to disabled people in rural areas, and therefore some of the poorest families with disabled members have not achieved substantial improvement. These avoidable government voids result in weaknesses in protecting disability rights.

Rights protection has never been a concern only for disabled people; instead, the establishment of an inclusive society should be the solid foundation of efforts to help such individuals. The achievement of this objective not only requires the government to improve laws and policies but also should involve encouraging the active participation of social forces such that disabled people become increasingly satisfied and can share in the advantages of economic and social development, and eventually help build a prosperous society for all the people.

Toward a co-prosperity society in a non-western setting

In the long development process of disability laws and policies in China, the occurrence of important domestic and international events often becomes a critical policy window for the improvement of the welfare of disabled people. For example, in terms of organizational construction, the China Disabled Persons’ Federation was established in 1988, and all local federations around the country were successively established. They provide organizational guarantees for the long-term development of support for disabled people. In terms of legislation, with vigorous promotion by the China Disabled Persons’ Federation and the Ministry of Civil Affairs, the Law on the Protection of Disabled People was enacted in December 1990. This was the first law that fully guaranteed disability rights, enabling disabled people to participate equally in social life and helping them to achieve political participation without barriers in China. In terms of information acquisition and employment, a variety of new media and audio learning platforms have emerged in China with the rapid development of Internet and smartphone communications nowadays, making these technologies more accessible to disabled people and helping achieve information exchange without barriers. Meanwhile, the rapid development of online business and domestic and international logistics make it possible for some disabled people to break through the multiple barriers so that they can sell their physical and intellectual products domestically and abroad, helping them achieve employment without barriers. In terms of daily life, China’s accessibility standards finally rose to national standards when Beijing hosted the Paralympic Games in 2008. Civil aviation, transformation, and construction departments have accelerated the development of barrier-free construction and have helped achieve travel and public services without barriers. In terms of a country’s international impact, China began to participate fully in and promote international disability affairs.

The rapid development of the Chinese economy and the growing soundness of the legal system transcend the various limitations and make it increasingly accessible to disabled people, allowing them to realize their worth and delineating a road to building a co-prosperity society in a non-western system.

Conclusion and discussion

Unlike the participation model of various driving forces in western countries, the government in China is the dominant force for law-making and policy agenda-setting, and important events at home and abroad often serve as valuable opportunities for triggering policy changes and law revisions. The construction of the legal system is the most powerful support for safeguarding and developing human rights, which is also the concentrated expression of the will of the state. The newly promulgated ‘New Progress in the Legal Protection of Human Rights in China’ advocates that the protection of disability rights should be reflected in all aspects of legislation, judicial, administrative, and international affairs. Rights protection for disabled people is the responsibility of the whole society. How to increase disabled people’s real satisfaction of the legal and policy system, and ensure that they can share the fruits of national economic and social development, merits additional research.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.