"You Won": Court Issues 'Easy-Read' Ruling for Plaintiff with Intellectual Disabilities

"The plaintiff, OOO, who filed this lawsuit, has won. The court recognizes you as a person with an intellectual disability."

A recent ruling by the Seoul Administrative Court contained language quite different from standard legal terminology.

The document used simple words that the plaintiff, a person with an intellectual disability, could easily understand, and even included illustrations throughout the text.

According to the legal community on June 30, the 7th Administrative Division of the Seoul Administrative Court (Presiding Judge Kang Woo-chan) ruled in favor of the plaintiff on June 25 in a lawsuit filed by A against the head of Yangcheon-gu Office, seeking to cancel a decision that deemed them ineligible for disability registration. The court provided this 'easy-read' ruling to the plaintiff.

This is the first easy-read ruling issued in accordance with the 'Guidelines for Judicial Support for Socially Vulnerable Groups, Including Persons with Disabilities,' which the Supreme Court implemented starting this year.

The court included a separate section at the beginning of the ruling, explaining the summary of the judgment by stating, "This document explains why the court made this decision. It is intended for the person who filed the lawsuit to read."

Over three pages, the court kindly explained the outcome—that A had won the case—the arguments made by the defendant (the district office), the reasons why the court determined the district office's decision was incorrect, and the result that the district office's decision would be nullified following the ruling.

Considering that A would be reading the ruling directly, the plaintiff was referred to as "you," and the document included a note saying, "If you have any further questions, please contact your legal aid attorney."

The court's efforts to consider A's circumstances were evident not only in the format of the ruling but also in its content.

A, who is in their 20s, applied for registration as a person with an intellectual disability at the Yangcheon-gu Office in November 2023, but was rejected.

The district office based its decision on an opinion from the National Pension Service, which had conducted a review of the degree of disability and concluded that A did not meet the criteria for an intellectual disability.

Although A's medical records showed an IQ of 65, which is below the threshold for an intellectual disability diagnosis (70), the National Pension Service made its determination based on the fact that no signs of additional cognitive decline, such as brain damage, had been confirmed since a previous finding of ineligibility during A's childhood.

However, the court pointed out the errors in the judgments of the district office and the National Pension Service, stating, "Nowhere in the disability welfare laws and regulations does it state that if intellectual decline appears after adulthood, an intellectual disability can only be recognized if acquired brain damage or organic brain disease is objectively proven."

The court noted, "The essence of an intellectual disability lies in whether current intellectual and adaptive functioning is permanently limited," adding that "the defendant's assumption that the existence of 'acquired brain damage or brain disease' is a virtually essential requirement is an overly narrow interpretation of the judgment criteria under the law."

The court also judged that it should be taken into account that A had recorded an IQ of less than 70 in three separate tests over the past few years and had been diagnosed with an intellectual disability by multiple psychiatrists.

The court further stated that when it questioned A directly, it was clear that the individual faced significant limitations in performing basic daily activities and living independently in society.

In particular, the court cited the Act on Welfare of Persons with Disabilities, the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD), the recently enacted Act on Guarantee of Rights of Persons with Disabilities, and the book 'Faces of Intellectual Disability' by Licia Carlson, a philosophy professor at Providence College in the United States, to point out that the presence of an intellectual disability should not be judged solely by IQ scores.

In this section, the court emphasized, "An intellectual disability as defined by the disability welfare laws cannot be judged solely by IQ; it must be determined by whether there are significant limitations in daily and social life due to the impairment of intellectual ability."

(Photo: Provided by Seoul Administrative Court, Yonhap News)
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.