The case of Sylvia Niusht and Peter Takach v. Hungary. Views of the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities dated April 16, 2013.
Message No. 1/2010
In 2010, the author was assisted in the preparation of complaints. Subsequently, the complaint was communicated to Hungary.
It has been established that none of the measures taken by the state has provided access to banking services for people with visual impairment using cards provided by ATMs. The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities has been violated.
As seen from the text of the Considerations, both authors suffered from a very serious visual impairment. They argued that "... because of their disability, they are directly discriminated against in terms of access to services provided by ATMs, compared with sighted OTP customers. They pointed out that in determining discrimination, both the Metropolitan Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court ignored the opinion of the Advisory Council on Equal Treatment that "[...] failure to ensure accessibility for persons with disabilities is a violation of the principle of equal treatment, and thus failure to ensure unhindered access falls under the Equal Treatment Act. [...] Failure to comply with the obligation to ensure accessibility constitutes direct discrimination, as it means that persons with disabilities are treated less favourably when accessing services than persons without disabilities [...]" (paragraph 3.2 of the Considerations).
The Committee's assessment of the factual circumstances of the case: taking into account the measures duly taken by the State party to improve the accessibility of OTP ATMs (Credit Institution in Hungary.) and other financial institutions for persons with visual impairments and other types of disabilities, the Committee nevertheless noted that none of these measures ensured the availability of card banking services which are provided by OTP ATMs for the authors or for other persons in a similar position. Accordingly, the Committee considers that the State party has failed to comply with its obligations under article 9, paragraph 2 (b), of the Convention (paragraph 9.6 of the Views).
The Committee's conclusions: there has been a violation of article 9 of the Convention.