Check Politik: Le Luxembourg élit son parlement booklet;

A series of accessible documents aimed at people with disabilities have been published on the upcoming elections in Luxembourg.

Voting is an activity that allows people with disabilities to effectively exercise their political rights and to influence decisions that may affect them. In practice, however, there are still obstacles to the effective exercise of their rights. To remedy this, Article 29 of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities of the United Nations (CRPD), which Luxembourg ratified in 2011, provides that the State must facilitate access to elections, through procedures accessible to all.

With this in mind, the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities recommended to the Luxembourg State that it "take the necessary legislative and other measures to ensure that persons with disabilities can participate in political and public life on an equal footing with others, including the exercise of their right to vote."

In response the Luxembourg Ministry of Family, Integration and the Greater Region has entrusted a working group, set up in 2017, to implement the Committee's recommendations. This group, made up of different partners, including Info-Handicap, the Institute for the Visually Impaired and the Fondation Zentrum fir politesch Bildung, has implemented means suitable for people with intellectual disabilities and/or limited reading and writing skills in order to ensure their participation in the elections without the help of a third party.

As a result, the working group has written several documents in easy-to-read language (available in French and German) to facilitate access to information for everyone, including the Check Politik: Le Luxembourg élit son parlement booklet, an easy-to-read version of instructions for voters for each constituency and for the postal vote and the Accessibilité des bureaux de vote brochure (in French and German), which is addressed to municipalities.

Check Politik is a series of booklets with easy-to-read content, published by the Zentrum fir politesch Foundation Bildung and the Competence Centre for Easy Language "Klaro", and co-funded by the Ministry of Family, Integration and Greater Region and the Ministry of National Education, Childhood and Youth. The first issue focuses on the parliamentary elections in Luxembourg and provides explanations on the functioning of the parliament, electoral procedures and the formation of the government. The aim of this series is to make information on political and social issues accessible to a larger number of people and thus encourage them to become active citizens. The booklets are aimed at the general public and people with learning or reading difficulties in particular.

Regarding the easy-to-read version of voting instructions, access to elections is guaranteed only if all the official documents distributed to households about the elections are understandable and accessible to all voters. Writing documents in easy-to-read language according to European rules facilitates access to information for a larger part of the population. This includes a standard font, a size 12 character font minimum and printing documents in their original format. For each constituency, there is a version of the convocation and instructions for the voter adapted in easy language, as well as one for the postal vote. 

The polling booth accessibility brochure, published by Info-Handicap, in collaboration with Klaro, is aimed at municipalities, which are asked to take the necessary measures to ensure that everyone can exercise their right to vote.

All documents are available online at www.elections.public.lu, www.info-handicap.lu or www.mfamigr.gouvernement.lu.