It's directly (and I believe explicitly) modelled on the Americans with Disabilities Act. The ADA creates a model in which private citizens can and do bring lawsuits against all types of organisations for any type of harm they can define.

This has spun out a cottage industry of disabled people who's full time occupation is visiting everything from websites to restaurants, being harmed and bringing lawsuits. While that may sound like a bad thing, it is in fact a very very cost effective way of enforcing the law quite effectively without bureaucratic bloat. Strangely, it's been quite successful. The history of why this decision was made is very interesting.

For all your devs, this is why large American companies care so much about accessibility on their websites - because it creates an almost unlimited liability on their end if you do it badly. Companies now scan websites for accessibility as soon as they're launched, then others will buy the set of companies which 'fail', then visit those sites in order to be harmed. It's an interesting little cottage industry which keeps legitimate disability rights enforced quite nicely without too big a government.