This paper aims to give an analysis on the protection of the right to political participation for person with disabilities in Africa. To this end, I will seek to find out whether African countries have adhered to the standards set forth under the CRPD. Part one will explain the meaning of political participation in relation to persons with disabilities. Here I will also explain the different manifestation of political participation. Part two will give an overview of the African human rights system on the protection of person with disabilities. I will be focusing on whether the current system protects person with disabilities and importantly whether Africa needs a disability rights treaty different from CRPD. Part three will discuss the CRPD and the obligations it provides for states. Article 29 of the CRPD will also be discussed in detail explaining what is required. Part four will be critically reviewing domestic legislation of African countries that have signed and ratified the CRPD. The purpose is to assess whether these African countries have managed to adhere to the standards set forth by CRPD. Finally I will give recommendations on how African countries can effectively realise the right to political participation.

At the heart of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) is the reaffirmation of the universality, indivisibility, interdependence and interrelatedness of all human rights, and the open acknowledgement that civil and political rights alone cannot fully protect the inherent dignity and worth of persons with disabilities. Accordingly, the aims of the CRPD cannot be realised unless the socio-economic rights of persons with disabilities are rigorously enforced. Ghana, like most African signatories to the CRPD, operates a human rights regime that pays little attention to socio-economic rights. Socio-economic rights are contained in Chapter VI of Ghana’s Constitution (1992). The Chapter, titled the ‘Directive Principles of State Policy’, has been interpreted by its Supreme Court variously, making it impossible to discern, clearly, whether the rights listed in the Chapter are justiciable. These inconsistent interpretations pose a major challenge to the full implementation of the CRPD. This article seeks to achieve three broad objectives: to explain why socio-economic rights have been effectively unenforceable in Ghana; to show how the current situation poses a threat to the full performance of Ghana’s obligations under the CRPD; and to propose some ways of going round the impasse. The article is divided into five parts. Part 1 offers a brief description of the landscape of disability in Ghana. Part 2 unpacks the nature of the obligation that states undertake when they ratify the CRPD. It also explains how these obligations cannot be fully performed unless socio-economic rights are rigorously enforced. Part 3 takes a critical look at Ghana’s human rights regime under the 1992 Constitution. Part 4 will conduct a brief international comparative analysis on how two countries - India and South Africa - have enforced socio-economic rights. The final Part will conclude by drawing on the experiences from other jurisdictions to suggest mechanisms for going round the impasse.

This paper examines the capacity to testify and access justice of witnesses with intellectual disabilities who have been sexually assaulted, focusing on the situation in South Africa and Zimbabwe. Through the rigid application of rules of criminal evidence and procedure to witnesses with intellectual disabilities, the criminal justice system sometimes perpetuates inequality and discrimination. The testimonial competence of witnesses with intellectual disabilities is often challenged due to the misconception that persons with intellectual disabilities do not make reliable witnesses in court. Using critical disability theory’s understanding of disability as resulting from the interactional process between a person with impairment and the environment, it is contended that incompetence to act as a witness is not inherent in the individual with impairment. The environment, which includes the rules of evidence and procedure, also plays a part yet it is often excluded from the assessment. It is argued that assessments of an individual’s ability should only be made for the purpose of determining what accommodations they need in order to give effective testimony in court.