장애인 이동권에 관한 헌법적 고찰

The constitution provides that disabled persons should be taken under the nation`s protection. Korea took its initial step towards securing legal measures providing the right to mobility for the disabled when it introduced the "Act on Enhancing and Securing Convenience for the Disabled, Elderly and Pregnant" in April 1997. Since then, the act has not been developed and effective as expected, and there have been numerous handicapped citizens suffering mobility accidents. Amidst such circumstances, the Korean government has prepared the "Act on Enhancing Mobility for the Vulnerable during Transportation"in late 2004. During the process, the disabled were exposed to more risks than others in everyday mobility, and reached the point where their lives were at stake in basic living conditions. Issues involved in an incomplete mobility security extends beyond the significance of moving from place to place for the disabled, to include more comprehensive aspects such as economic and human rights issues. However, legal discussions related to the right to mobility until now has been substantially lacking. consistently and completely secure mobility for the handicapped citizens. In order to achieve the objectives, surveys were conducted for the disabled, the results of which are discussed in Chapter Ⅳ "Desire and Status of Right to Mobility for the Disabled". As with the earlier researches, this study showed that the desire for the right to mobility was high among the disabled citizens. Nevertheless, the means for acquiring help was found to be low. In other words, while the handicapped citizens have a high degree of desire to be mobile, they are not being provided with what is required for them to move, such as various facilities and public transportation. Even when such facilities are being provided, it turned out that the reliability on them was relatively low. It is somewhat obvious that the emotional distress and dissatisfaction felt by the disabled is being transferred to the overall distrust of the public transportation system such as buses and subways.