Equality and Human Rights Commission

Article 18 says:

• Governments must recognise that disabled people have equal rights to decide where they live and to move between countries, and that they have a nationality. They should do this through taking steps, including making sure that disabled people:
  • can obtain or change a nationality
  • have papers, like passports
  • can leave any country including their own
  • can enter their own country without discrimination on basis of disability.
• Disabled children have the right to a name from birth, a right to be a citizen and if possible, the right to know and be cared for by their parents.

What does this mean?

This means that disabled people should not be restricted to go to another country or to come back to their country of permanent residence. It could mean that the government needs to take steps so that airport security measures or passport requirements do not discriminate against disabled persons.

One of the fundamental principles of European Community law is free movement of persons. If a disabled British citizen moves to another country in the European Community they should still be able to claim certain disability benefits. 

Reservation

When it ratified the Convention the UK Government made a statement (a ‘reservation’) about immigration matters which limits the impact of this Article and indeed the whole Convention, with respect to immigration, in the UK. It means that the UK Government will continue to apply whatever immigration rules it thinks are necessary (regardless of whether they would conflict with the Convention). The Equality and Human Rights Commission believes that this reservation is incompatible with the object and purpose of the Convention and should not be permitted under Article 46 of the Convention.

The UK made a similar reservation on immigration and citizenship to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. However, in 2008
the reservation was eventually withdrawn. This followed strong criticism in two reports by the United Nations Committee on the
Rights of the Child, combined with campaigning by children’s rights organisations. Withdrawing the reservation gave vulnerable children seeking asylum, those trafficked into the UK and others subject to immigration control, the same rights to education, health and support services as British children.