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Case Reports - Civil Law Disabled man wins posthumous legal victory Cooper v Coffs Harbour City Council Decision of the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission released on 19 May 2000 Disability activist, Mr Ian Cooper, had a posthumous victory in the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission today. Mr Cooper died two weeks ago, aged 45. Now, five years after a decision by Coffs Harbour City Council to approve redevelopment of Coffs Harbour City Centre Cinema without insisting on access for wheelchair users, the Commission has upheld Mr Cooper’s claim that the Council breached the Disability Discrimination Act. In an earlier case Legal Aid lawyer, Paul Batley, represented Mr Cooper and in a landmark decision in August 1997, the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission found that the cinema operators had discriminated against wheelchair users and ordered them to install wheelchair platform stairlifts. Mr Cooper’s case against the Council went up to the Federal Court before being sent back to the Commission for a decision on whether the Council had honestly and reasonably believed that insisting on access for wheelchair users would cause the cinema operators unjustifiable hardship. In a decision which will have a major impact on the way councils across Australia deal with developments, the Commission found that although Coffs Harbour Council honestly believed that disability access would cause the operator hardship, that belief was unreasonable, because the Council did not scrutinise the developer's claims. Commissioner Carter QC said, “In this case the concern must be that the Council did little if anything to properly inform itself of the relevant matters so that its belief could be supported on reasonable grounds.” Paul Batley, Mr Cooper’s Legal Aid lawyer says, “This decision is a fitting memorial to all Ian Cooper’s efforts to ensure the human rights of people with disabilities are respected. It reminds local government that equal access is not just an aspiration to be ignored when inconvenient but a right to be enforced unless impractical.” Contact: Paul Batley: 02 6651 7899 Back to full list of case reports |
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