The administrative public interest litigation case of visually barrier-free information construction was handled in Shushan, Hefei, the first case in our province!

"The new Braille books in the library are clearly printed, and the current Braille is used correctly, which is very suitable for blind people to read. There is also a special reading table for us blind people. How thoughtful! " On May 4th this year, in the reading room for the blind of Hefei Library, Mr. Jiang, a visually impaired person, said happily to You Yi, assistant procurator of the Third Procuratorate of Shushan District Procuratorate of Hefei.

Teacher Jiang experienced this change in Hefei Library, which benefited from the first administrative public interest litigation case of visually barrier-free information construction in our province handled by Shushan District Procuratorate. In January last year, the prosecutor of the hospital found that the daily reading needs of visually impaired people with disabilities were difficult to meet, Braille books were expensive and difficult to buy, and the borrowing process in some libraries was not smooth. After visiting local disabled persons’ federations, public welfare voluntary organizations and relevant administrative organs, and listening to the opinions of the visually impaired, the prosecutor further learned that the reading room for the blind in Hefei Library could not be used normally, and the configuration of barrier-free information exchange equipment such as Braille books, audio books, voice recording, large character reading equipment and software was not perfect, which made it inconvenient for the visually impaired to borrow. In view of the fact that the reading rights and interests of visually impaired people have not been effectively guaranteed, and the social public interests have been infringed, under the guidance of the provincial procuratorate and the designated jurisdiction of the Hefei Procuratorate, on April 12, 2022, the Shushan District Procuratorate filed an administrative public interest litigation investigation.

Since then, the hospital has held a round table meeting with relevant regulatory authorities to discuss the statutory duties of administrative organs, the implementation of the demands of disabled representatives, the rectification plan, and regulatory measures, and clarified the direction of rectification. On April 15th, the Procuratorate of Shushan District issued a pre-litigation procuratorial proposal to Hefei Culture and Tourism Bureau, stressing that promoting barrier-free environment construction is an important prerequisite for ensuring the disabled and other social members to fully and equally participate in social life. Information accessibility is an important part of barrier-free environment construction and an inevitable requirement for building an information society in an all-round way and promoting social fairness and justice. Hefei Library, as a subordinate unit of Hefei Culture and Tourism Bureau, has some shortcomings in the guarantee of barrier-free information construction. The bureau is responsible for the development of urban public culture and should perform its supervision and management duties according to law to avoid the infringement of social public interests. In view of this, according to the Public Library Law, Regulations on Barrier-free Environment Construction, Regulations on Protection of Disabled Persons in Anhui Province and Administrative Measures on Barrier-free Environment Construction in Anhui Province, this proposal requires Hefei Library to allocate Braille books and related reading equipment according to regulations, optimize the lending process, improve the construction of barrier-free information, and ensure that special groups can enjoy social public cultural services equally.

After receiving the procuratorial suggestions, Hefei Municipal Bureau of Culture and Tourism attached great importance to it and decided to launch a special campaign of "protecting the reading rights of visually impaired people" throughout the city, urging more than 30 libraries in Hefei and related communities to improve the construction of visually impaired reading facilities in time, speed up the transformation of information barrier-free environment, ensure the normal use of reading rooms for the blind, and at the same time, add existing Braille books for social sciences and literature. For this special rectification, Hefei Culture and Tourism Bureau gave a written reply to the Shushan District Procuratorate.

In order to consolidate the results of public interest litigation, on May 4th this year, the Procuratorate of Shushan District specially invited three representatives of visually impaired people and two volunteers of procuratorial cloud platform and supervisors of barrier-free environment construction to walk into Hefei Library for "looking back". Everyone browsed more than 200 new Braille books purchased by the library and experienced the "network+mail" borrowing process and new barrier-free information exchange equipment such as a book listening machine.

In Hefei Library, the Procuratorate of Shushan District, together with the public welfare organization for the protection of the disabled, also held a forum on the spot with the theme of "helping the disabled with culture and reading the light". During the discussion and exchange, participants in the "Looking Back" fully affirmed the efforts made by the procuratorial organs in helping to protect the reading rights and interests of disabled people, and put forward opinions and suggestions on the optimization of Braille book procurement categories, the compilation of e-books, the improvement of online lending process of Braille books, and the promotion of offline navigation volunteer service. The relevant person in charge of Hefei Library said that according to the suggestions and requirements put forward by everyone, the barrier-free information construction in the library will be continuously improved to ensure that special groups such as visually impaired people can better share the achievements of social and cultural services.

"Now the needs of dyslexic groups such as visually impaired people have new connotations and are more diverse. As a procuratorial organ, it should help this special group to share more colorful cultural products in an equal and timely manner with the power of the rule of law." You Yi said. She also told reporters that in the process of handling a series of public interest litigation cases in the fields of transportation and barrier-free information reading, the public interest litigation department of the hospital found that seven disabled representatives who participated in barrier-free environment experience had difficulties in life, and they were transferred to the court as clues for judicial assistance. Complaint and prosecution department. After investigation and verification, the procuratorate issued them a total of 34,000 yuan in judicial assistance.

On October 18th, this administrative public interest litigation case of visually barrier-free information construction handled by Shushan District Procuratorate was jointly rated as a typical case of public interest litigation of barrier-free environment construction by the Supreme People’s Procuratorate, Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development and China Disabled Persons’ Federation. Chu Zhang