PAS 78 and the Disability Discrimination Act
As well as my notes quoting the DRC’s legal bloke saying they would be getting more shirty and would/ could cite the PAS in court, here’s a couple of opinions from third party lawyer types:
Alex Newson, a UK lawyer at Freeth Cartwright, writes
- PAS 78 is the latest addition to the ‘best practice’ concept.
- Following best practice is the best way of complying with the DDA
- PAS 78 is not a technical standard like WAI, it’s about the process of making and maintaining accessible websites
- Following WAI Level 2 (at least) remains the ‘minimum’ website owners and designers should be looking to achieve
Struan Robertson, editor of outlaw.com (a Pinsent Masons site), comments:
The DRC‘s endorsement of PAS 78 is significant and it could be used in court to illustrate whether a business has complied with the Disability Discrimination Act. A failure to follow it could be damaging to an organisation’s case; but compliance would be evidence of steps being taken to fulfil the legal duty.
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Hi Bruce,
I’m in the process of creating a blog, using wordpress, for a project that ‘m running for my employers the Institute of Physics. Like evryone else, we’re legally required to take reasonable steps to make our websites accessible, but I don’t know if I’ll be able to do this using wordpress ( I don’t know much about it so far).
Do you know if using WordPress will limit me to the extent where, for example, I can’t conform to PAS78?
Thanks,
Sam