THE GIST of Editorial for UPSC Exams : 29 JANUARY 2019 (Capable even if disabled (The Hindu)

Capable even if disabled (The Hindu)
 

Mains Paper 2: Economy
Prelims level: American disability rights movement
Mains level: Issues relating to development and management of Social Sector

Context

•  The American disability rights movement was the American Supreme Court’s decision, in 1927, upholding the forced sterilization of a mentally infirm woman, reasoning that it helped get rid of those who would sap the state of its strength by swamping it with incompetence.
•  In India, the Supreme Court’s ruling last Tuesday, in V. Surendra Mohan v. Union of India, has to be regarded as one of the darkest in India’s disability rights movement.

Problematic for fulfillment

•  The Court had to rule on the legality of the Tamil Nadu government’s policy of reserving the post of civil judge only for people whose percentage of blindness does not exceed 40-50%,
•  It resulting in the exclusion of the applicant who was 70% blind. It held that the government’s decision was rational and reasonable.
•  It ruled that a judicial officer has to possess a reasonable amount of sight and hearing to discharge her functions.
•  It accepted the claim that impaired vision makes it impossible to perform the functions required of judicial officers, such as assessing the demeanour of witnesses and reading and analysing evidence.
•  It also accepted that asking a blind judicial officer to perform such administrative functions as recording dying declarations and conducting inquiries can result in avoidable complications.

Examples of success

•  The view that a totally blind person cannot thrive as a judge is belied by several examples of successful judges who are blind.
•  One is former South African Constitutional Court judge Zak Yacoob, who has repudiated the notion that one needs to be sighted to assess a witness’s demeanour as being nonsensical, to U.S. Court of Appeals DC Circuit judge David S. Tatel, who thinks that it is neither fair nor accurate to impose low expectations on what blind lawyers can do.
•  There is also former San Diego County Court judge David Szumowski, who has described the view that a blind person lacks the wherewithal to become a judge as an unfair characterisation, to Yousaf Saleem who, last year, became Pakistan’s first blind civil judge.
•  How, some contend, can a blind person be reasonably expected to thrive as a judge without being excessively dependent and inefficient?
•  However, as the Supreme Court itself noted in 2017“A lawyer can be just as effective in a wheelchair, as long as she has access to the courtroom and the legal library, as well as to whatever other places and material or equipment that are necessary for her to do her job well.”
•  The Court’s unreasoned assertion is an outcome of their ignorance about the capabilities of the disabled.
•  However, as Laura Wolk notes, ignorance simply cannot be an excuse in 2019.
•  It is simply unacceptable to condemn disabled legal professionals, possessing the intellectual wherewithal to be a judge, to the status of outcasts only because the judges delivering the judgment in this case appear simply not to have bothered to notice the competence of the millions of disabled people who inhabit this world.

Reasonable accommodations

•  The reasonable accommodations required by a blind judge may be considered irksome.
•  However, it bears noting that “there is a distinct exhortatory dimension to be recognised in deciding whether an adjustment to assist a disabled person to overcome the disadvantage that she or he has in comparison to an able-bodied person is reasonable.”
•  It does not lie in our mouth to say that we are truly committed to ensuring that the constitutional promise of equality is fully realised, if we lack the ability to even pay the price of making reasonable accommodations.

Way forward

•  Supreme Court tells me that my blindness makes me intrinsically incapable of becoming a judicial officer, when it arrogates to itself the power to stamp a badge of incompetence on thousands like me about whom it knows nothing, its declaration cuts to the core of my confidence about the fairness and robustness of our judicial system.
•  Indeed, it is telling that even the applicant in this case took it as a given that those who are completely blind for all intents and purposes, like me, cannot become a judge;
•  It only argued that a partially blind person can become a judge. I have never had any interest in becoming part of the judiciary.
•  However, I earnestly believe that how we choose to respond to this institutional display of pure and simple discrimination dressed up as legal reasoning will be reflective of what kind of a society we hope to be.
   

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General Studies Pre. Cum Mains Study Materials

Prelims Questions:

Q.1) As per the 10th Agriculture Census 2015-16 which was released recently by the Agriculture Ministry, consider the following statements:
A. By the number of people tilling the land, Uttar Pradesh topped the chart.
B. The average size of farm holding was the highest in Nagaland.
C. Agriculture Census in India is conducted at four-year intervals to collect data on structural aspects of farm holdings.

Choose the correct option:
A. A and B
B. B and C
C. B only
D. All of the above

Answer: A

Mains Questions:
Q.1) An institutional display of pure and simple discrimination dressed up as legal reasoning is unacceptable. Critically analyse the statement.