Disabled children win civil suit against the Cabinet of Ministers

The District Administrative Court in Kyiv has found unlawful and invalid the Cabinet of Ministers Resolution No. 1015 from 12.11.2008 where it deprives disabled children of the right to an electrically powered wheelchair up till the age of 14.

The court thus allowed in full the appeal by Vitaly Matyushenko from Kharkiv whose 7-year-old daughter Yulia the Cabinet of Ministers had denied the right to get to her school lessons using such a wheelchair.

The court agreed with the claimant that CMU Resolution No. 1015 contradicts the Laws on the Fundamental Principles of Social Protection for the Disabled, on the Rehabilitation of the Disabled as well as the UN Convention on the Rights of the Disabled, which Ukraine has ratified.

Representatives of the Cabinet of Ministers had argued in court that an electrically powered wheelchair was comparable to a trolleybus or electrically charged vehicle and that young disabled children could create a dangerous situation on roads.

The interests of children with disabilities were represented in court by bar lawyer Viacheslav Yakubenko and the case was supported by the Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union Strategic Litigations Fund.