INTRODUCTION POLICY AND PRINCIPLES IN DRAFTIG A SYSTEMIC LAW ON DISABLED PERSONS IN THE REPUBLIC OF MACEDONIA (Draft Platform) Zvonko Shavreski NGO Polio Plus Human Rights… Disability, which as a phenomenon accompanies the entire human existence, has passed a long way from the traditional, through the medical standpoint to position itself as a social issue. Within that sector, in the last twenty years(from a global perspective) disabled people have been successfully fighting to reformulate the stereotypes of disability from a social issue into a human rights issue. So, disability does not lie in the individual(disabled person), but in the society. Disability means disrupted communication between individual’s rights and com­munity’s responsibility to provide equal opportunities for all its members to par­ticipate in social life. All, irrespective of who they are, enjoy equal human rights that derive from the Universal Declaration on Human Rights. That is the so called first generation of human rights. However, when one thinks about disabled people’s rights in the de­veloping countries, the“second generation” of human rights(such as the right to food, housing…) are of special importance to the disabled people coming from the poor strata and must be viewed in close relation to civil and political rights. Still, the key issue is not if these rights belong to the respective person, but if he or she can really enjoy them. In order to ensure this parameter to a certain extent in a piece of legislation, it is necessary to follow several leading principles: 1. Equal value and dignity for all human beings; 2. Autonomy and independence of human personality; 3. Non-discrimination; 4. Right to physical, essential and service access; 5. Right to live in one’s own community together with one’s own family; 199