The Supreme Administrative Court is scheduled to rule on the case against Bangkok City and Bangkok’s skytrain ‘BTS’ who were accused of not providing transportation equity for physically challenged people. This is the first case against the state authorities concerning people with physical challenges in Thailand.
Network of people with disabilities in Thailand on Monday announced the plan to gather on Wednesday at the Supreme Administrative Court to await the historical ruling on a case filed against Bangkok Metropolitan Administration (BMA) and Bangkok Mass Transit System Public Company Limited (BMTS), the operator of the BTS Skytrain.
“It’s been 20 years since Thailand has the BTS Skytrain System, but it has never been made entirely accessible for people with disabilities, especially [due to] lifts that could assist elderly and people with disabilities to go to the platforms,” said Suporntum Monkolsawadi, the General-Secretary of the Redemptorist Foundation for People with Disabilities (RFPD).
The Interior Ministry’s ministerial regulation, issued on 2005, stipulated that transportation services, hospitals, department stores must provide paratransits, including lifts, for people with disabilities and elderly.
Group of people with physical challenges from Nakhon Pathom Province held activities at the National Stadium BTS station to raise awareness on transportation equity on Monday.
The Administrative Court in 2009 dismissed the case on the ground that the construction contract of the BTS was signed in 1996, which was before the regulation was enacted. The law must not have retrospective effect. The case, therefore, was dismissed.
The network fought the case to the Supreme Administrative Court and the verdict will be delivered on Wednesday.
Suporntum pointed out that not all the BTS stations have elevators. Moreover, there is only one lift for each station which composes of many exists. The network calls for the BTS to install the lifts at every exits of a station, so that the disabilities do not have to take a taxi to cross the street.
Suporntum added that the fact that the authorities only think about ‘necessity’, but not ‘equality’ when it comes to this issue is discrimination. Moreover, the claim that there is no demand to provide transport equity for people with physical challenges because there are not many of them who would use the BTS is unjust.
“It is sad that the policy makers use this logic, which need to be immediately reconsidered,” said the activist for disabled people.
Group of people with physical challenges from Nakhon Pathom Province at National Stadium BTS Station on Monday
“People with physical challenges have been fighting for this continuously for driving a change in the Thai society from ‘charity based’ to ‘rights based’ because the rights for physically-challenged people should be granted on an equal basis with other people and should not be discriminatory. What we are calling for is based on public interests because installing the lifts will ease elderly and people with physical challenges [when commuting on the BTS], including, pregnant women, people who have to carry goods, and tourists with luggages. It’s obvious that this is the shared public interests, which is not only for the disable people according to the global standards,” said Suporntum.
Pichaet Raktabut, one of the person who filed a similar lawsuit against BMA and BMTS cited that the discrimination towards people with disabilities does not only exist in the BTS system, but on the MRT (Bangkok’s underground train as well) as well.
Although the MRT is equipped with an elevator in all of its 18 stations, but out of 60 exit gates only half have elevators.
“Moreover, although nowadays the MRT has elevators, but most of them are locked and people need to ask for permissions to use them, which take around 15 minutes for the MRT personnel to come,” added Pichaet.