Is there a right to sport for people with disabilities? A young lawyer from Toulon, Lydie Cohen, looked into this question in the context of a doctoral thesis at the University of Limoges (1) brilliantly defended last December following five years of research.
Head of the sports law division of the LLC & Associates law firm in the Toulon office and vice-president of the Departmental Olympic and Sports Committee of the Var (CDOS 83), Lydie Cohen made her debut as a lawyer at the national resource center Sport and disability from the Ministry of Sport in Paris.
She was regularly challenged by people with disabilities on their difficulties in practicing, the discrimination they are victims of, linked to the inaccessibility of equipment, the refusal to accommodate on the part of certain clubs or the lack of sports offer. .
Diffuse law, limited implementation of texts
“The subject touched me and I wondered regarding the idea of a right to sport, still quite widespread in French law, even if it is recognized in the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities” , she explains.
His thesis therefore questions this idea of the right to sport in the public legal order (international, community and national) and in the sports legal order (regulations of federations, judgments of the court of arbitration for sport), with the idea “to participate in the recognition of a general right to sport, for all, and more specifically for people with disabilities.”
Her work first consisted in dissecting the texts already existing in the two legal orders, then in a second step, she focused on their implementation.
“I saw the limits within the framework of my functions. These texts are difficult to be applied, there are many limits to the sports practice of disabled people when everything should be able to be adapted to the handicap, that is to say tell regarding the obstacles that a person encounters in their interactions with their environment, she observes. Of course there are limits, but everything is possible if we find the right levers, the right development devices.”
This is the third part of his work rewarded by the thesis jury: proposing remedies, solutions.
At the intersection of fundamental rights, including health
Lydie Cohen pleads for the recognition of a right to sport at the constitutional level. “Sport is at the intersection of several fundamental rights including health. Depriving someone of sport can jeopardize their fundamental rights.”
It also campaigns for each written text to be educational in terms of accessibility for people with disabilities. “In general, we should no longer be satisfied with formulas such as “make accessible”. We must be clear regarding the modalities of social, cultural, sporting accessibility… for a better understanding of the subject.”
It is possible: she cites the examples of several federations (such as handi-surfing) which make the practice accessible to all types of disability (physical, visual, auditory, mental or psychological).
She is finally in favor of “a mix of practices, events and even institutions. Is it normal, she asks, to have an Olympic committee on one side and a Paralympic committee on the other? Of course, this offers greater visibility to athletes with disabilities. But it’s also discriminatory.”
1- Within the Center for Sports Law and Economics in Limoges, under the direction of Professors Charles Dudognon and Jean-Pierre Karaquillo.
To advance
The CDOS, of which Lydie Cohen is vice-president, develops projects, for example in partnership with the RCT and the Family allowance fund, to develop the training of future supervisors in the reception of people with disabilities.
