Today, the Parliament starts consideration of the bill on arrangement of the space for the persons with disabilities as the Deputy Chair of the Human Rights and Civil Integration Committee, Rati Ionatamishvili stated at the briefing. The bill is considered with the I reading by the Human Rights and Civil Integration Committee.

“The key challenge of the state regarding the persons with disabilities is accessibility, and provision of equal opportunities is impossible without the adapted areas, accessible physical environment and services. Our duty is to make the effective steps to ensure irreversibility of the adaptation process in Georgia under the uniform vision and coordination”, - he noted.

The Georgian Dream MPs have developed the new bill initiated by Rati Ionatamishvili, David Matikashvili, Dachi Beraia, Vano Zardiashvili, Sofo Kiladze and Anri Okhanashvili.

“The new initiative will allow development of the fundamental reforms for equal conditions and opportunities of the persons with disabilities, namely imposition of the sanctions for failure of the construction to provide the needs of the persons with disabilities until full elimination of the problem. The sanctions will be also imposed according to the geographic area and construction classes. Supervision will cover the premises of all five classes and the sanctions will be defined from 1000 to 20 000 GEL according to the capacity of the construction. The bill also defines the responsible body on supervision – municipal supervision services”.

The transitional provisions of the bill assign the Government with regulation of 2 key and fundamental issues:

• Development of the new national construction standards for the persons with disabilities considering all diverse needs of the persons with disabilities as adaptation envisages not only the ramp and not only for the persons in the wheelchair;
• Development of the national Governmental action plan on accessibility defining the uniform vision about the adaptation process, defining the state agencies responsible for certain projects and defining the terms and resources.

“I believe, this initiative will take protection of the rights of the persons with disabilities to the new level and will establish the fundamental guarantees for development of accessibility and provision of needs of the persons with disabilities. These changes will have the positive impact on the families of the persons with disabilities”.

He thanked every party engaged in development of the initiative and especially the persons with disabilities and respective organizations.

He thanked the Prime Minister for support in development and introduction of the initiative.