T-192/14
The positive dimension of the right to equality
THE POSITIVE DIMENSION OF THE RIGHT TO EQUALITY
In this case, the claimant —a 54 year old woman with a severe functional disability, user of the public transportation system, in order to attend her job and return home every day— acting on her own behalf, demanded the Mayor Municipality of the City of Bogotá and the company of transportation Transmilenio S.A. for considering that they are violating her fundamental rights to equality, freedom of locomotion, work and human dignity, because the blue buses of the Integrated System of Public Transportation (Sistema Integrado de Transporte Público – SIPT) don’t possessed the necessary conditions for the access and mobility of the disabled population. Therefore, she requests the protection of her fundamental rights, and in that sense, to order the defendants to implement on their buses an adequate infrastructure, so population in conditions of disability may use them.
The Tribunal studied the following topics: (i) the public transportation as an indispensable mean to guarantee the effectiveness of the right of free locomotion, (ii) the special protection of the people in conditions of disability, (iii) the right to access the public transportation, and (iv) the possibility to request the protection of collective interests by means of an “acción de tutela”, when seeking the protection of a fundamental rights. After careful consideration, this Tribunal decided to protect the fundamental rights of the plaintiff, and in this context ordered the Capital District and Transmilenio S.A. to design and execute a plan orientated to guarantee the access of the disabled to the public transportation system, granting for that end a term of two years.
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