Gian's comments certainly make sense, wondering though how this would fare
if a large corporation appealed a case to the High Court (let's say they got
a $2m fine, and having employed full-time accessibility lawyers, decided to
prove a point)
There's a section of the Aust. constitution (51, part 29 I think?) to do
with the federal government's responsibilities to international treaties,
agreements etc (this was used by the federal govt in 1983 to stop Tasmania
creating the Franklin Dam) ... don't think this is strictly relevant but not
sure whether the international standards would just be ignored in favour of
the DDA, either (especially if it "recommends" rather than "dictates").
Would be interesting if there are any lawyers in this group to offer an
opinion?
Cheers
----Original Message Follows----
From: "Gian Sampson-Wild" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Reply-To: [email protected]
To: <[email protected]>
Subject: RE: [WSG] Accessibility standards - for commercial consumption
Date: Mon, 29 May 2006 22:04:13 +1000
HREOC's big stick is to taking the offending company/government department
to court. How do you think a case would go with HREOC saying the offending
web site is inaccessible because it did not validate it's documents as
required by the HREOC guidelines and the web site is inaccessible. And the
defendant saying it complied with the accepted international standard, the
WCAG 2.0 by ensuring that all it's documents could be parsed unambiguously.
No judge is going to be able to understand the issues and with a good lawyer
arguing accepted international standard vs HREOC guidelines, HREOC will be
left paying hefty court costs.
---
HREOC is the governing body in this instance and has successfully fought and
won an accessibility case in Australia. When I talk to clients they ask why
they have to worry about accessibility and I refer directly to the DDA. In
Australia, what the DDA recommends is what is legally required. I think you
do not give either judges or lawyers enough credit for being able to
differentiate between overseas law and Australian law.
Gian
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