Münchenstein makes disability rights a municipal responsibility

Münchenstein has adopted its own regulation for implementing disability rights and created a commission to identify barriers and propose improvements, SRF reports. According to an online article by the Swiss Municipal Association, it is the first municipality in Switzerland to introduce such a regulation.

People with disabilities and their relatives sit on the commission alongside specialists and municipal staff, bringing their experiences into its work. Commission president Andrea von Büren, who uses a stairlift to reach the first floor of the municipal building, says she has had to leave home earlier to make meetings on time.

“Then I ask myself: are we really making progress on inclusion?” she said. She added that such situations may not be major obstacles, but they show that equal access has yet to be achieved in everyday life.

The commission will look beyond physical barriers. Andreas Iten, head of the municipality’s residents’ services and a commission member, said a person with red-green colour blindness had pointed out that it was difficult to tell whether a service counter was open or closed because the indicator used only red and green.

The commission has held a round table to gather people’s needs and concerns. Anneli Cattelan, a member whose son uses a wheelchair, said the next step was to make those concerns more visible. Changes often required people to keep raising issues “politely and consistently”, she said. She cited a recently seen ramp intended to provide step-free access that was barely usable in practice.

The commission has not yet decided which issues to tackle first. The regulation requires the municipal council to report annually on its activities, Iten said, to ensure the commission’s work does not end up “in a drawer”. Georg Mattmüller, head of the Disability Forum for the Basel Region, welcomed the approach, saying that accessibility was also the responsibility of larger municipalities, not only the federal and cantonal authorities.