Commissioner welcomes British Sign Language Bill

4 February 2015

The Commissioner has welcomed the British Sign Language (Scotland) Bill, which is currently being considered in the Scottish Parliament.

As progress is still slow in securing equal rights for Deaf people, the Commissioner believes the Bill should be an important first step towards children and young people whose first language is BSL having their linguistic rights respected.

Rights and BSL

Deaf BSL users currently rely on disability discrimination legislation to access information and services in their own language.

The Commissioner believes that, like all other children and young people, members of the Deaf community should not have to declare themselves disabled to exercise their right to linguistic access.

Specific articles of the UNCRC that relate to this right include:

Article 29, which has implications for teaching children in their own language. Children whose main or only language is BSL have the right to access quality education from someone who signs it proficiently and is a fully qualified teacher of the Deaf.
Article 30, which underlines a child’s right to use their own language to participate fully in community life.

The Bill’s importance

As well as contributing towards the realisation of the rights outlined above. The Commissioner believes the Bill’s passage would:

help raise awareness of BSL across the hearing population
lead to a better public understanding and appreciation of BSL
help reverse the decline of diversity in BSL.

He believes that benefits the Bill would bring include:

improved educational provision for Deaf children, leading to increased educational attainment
increased awareness of BSL, perhaps leading to more hearing people considering a career as an interpreter, more teachers qualifying in BSL and greater inclusion in schools
an enhanced status of BSL as a language, helping address ignorance and discrimination.