On 13-14 November the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) organized a workshop in Brussels on the right of children with disabilities to participate effectively in legal proceedings. Experts and legal practitioners from Austria, the Czech Republic, Malta, the Netherlands and Slovakia exchanged good practices and strategies for ensuring access to justice for children with disabilities, in particular those with intellectual and psycho-social disabilities.
The workshop explored international and EU legal standards that require States to ensure access to justice for children with disabilities, including the right to be heard and to participate in criminal, civil, and administrative proceedings.
“Although all EU Member States, and the EU itself, have ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, and must comply with it and interpret legislation in line with it, practical implementation remains far behind these obligations,” said Karolína Babická, Senior Legal Adviser of the ICJ. “State authorities and justice actors must ensure that procedural accommodations are made available in each individual case. Without them children with disabilities face discrimination in justice systems,” she added.
Participants identified several common challenges in ensuring access to justice for children with disabilities across different EU countries represented. These included restrictions on legal capacity in proceedings, limited use of child-friendly language and easy-to-read formats, low awareness of and identification of children with disabilities, and the lack of specific, mandatory and continuous training for judges and other justice professionals.
The diverse group of judges and lawyers working with NGOs, law firms and Ombudsperson offices for children and persons with disabilities contributed examples of good practices for adequate procedural accommodations that support effective participation. These included accessible and adapted courtroom settings and the availability of specialized professionals, such as intermediaries and support persons. Participants also emphasized the need to stronger interdisciplinary collaboration among teachers, lawyers, social workers, guardians, police officers, judges, interpreters, and psychologists, to identify and support the special needs of children with disabilities. They further underscored the need to make national remedies both more accessible and more effective.
Download
Agenda here.
Follow-up
A follow-up webinar will take place in the coming weeks, offering an opportunity for continued exchange.
Background
The Be Seen Be Heard – Empowering Child VOICEs in Legal Proceedings (VOICE) project aims to promote the effective realization of children’s right to be heard and participate in judicial proceedings across Austria, the Czech Republic, Malta, the Netherlands, and Slovakia, in alignment with Article 12 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the EU Strategy on the Rights of the Child. Led by the consortium of partners – the ICJ, Nederlands Juristen Comité Voor de Mensenrechten, Forum for Human Rights, the Aditus Foundation, and the Österreichische Juristenkommission, the initiative focuses on enhancing the expertise of justice professionals working with children, bolstering the sharing of best practices and raising awareness about the need for a child-centred approach in legal proceedings.
This workshop was the last of the three transnational exchange workshops, held in Brussels. The first workshop, held in May 2025, explored the child’s right to be heard in legal proceedings. The second workshop in September 2025 focused on the participation of migrant and refugee children in asylum and migration-related proceedings.
Contact
Karolína Babická, ICJ Senior Legal Adviser, karolina.babicka@icj.org
