Legal Capacity, Disability and Human Rights: Changes and Challenges | OHRH (original) (raw)
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Advancing legal capacity jurisprudence
"This article addresses the role of strategic litigation of the right to legal capacity of people with disabilities. It places legal capacity within an international human rights law framework and sets out how it is particularly resonant in the context of disability where its withdrawal leads to arbitrary removal of rights such as the right to property, healthcare decision-making, working and voting. The article examines art.12 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), a treaty which, at the time of writing, has been signed by all 27 Member States of the European Union and ratified by 18. In addition, the EU has acceded to the Convention, the CRPD being the first UN human rights treaty that has provided this opportunity.The author provides a review of European jurisprudence in the area of legal capacity and suggests that litigation can play a valuable role in highlighting the wrongs in guardianship systems, and opening up areas for advocacy and law reform."
Cardozo law review, 2017
This symposium explores the meaning of personhood as it is or should be applied to persons with disabilities. This panel focuses on the concept of legal capacity-the ability to make decisions about one’s life, to exercise agency, and to have those decisions recognized by third parties. For my part, I would like to discuss how we might use domestic law — specifically the integration mandate of Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act and substantive due process — to help us move toward a recognition of universal legal capacity regardless of disability and bring meaningful changes to domestic guardianship regimes. While Article 12 of the U.N. Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities recognizes the right to universal legal capacity, the United States has never ratified that treaty, and domestic law in this area is still underdeveloped. This talk seeks to push the boundaries of the Americans with Disabilities Act to argue, as I have in the past, that guardianship con...
Legal Capacity and Supported Decision-Making: Lessons from Some Recent Legal Reforms
Laws
Article 12 of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities calls for a thorough review of State laws to recognise the right of persons with disabilities to enjoy legal capacity on an equal basis with others, thereby abolishing substitute decision-making regimes, and to receive the support they need for its exercise. With the aim of providing useful guidelines for legislative changes yet to be made, the present study examines and assesses, in the light of the Convention, some of the most recent and innovative legislative reforms in the area of legal capacity. The analysis shows that, although they appropriately reflect a change of perspective, shifting from the paradigm of the “best interests” of the person to the respect of their will and preferences, some of these reforms are not fully satisfactory, particularly because they still allow partial or total deprivation of legal capacity for persons with disabilities, and maintain institutions which perpetuate substitute de...
Recognising legal capacity: commentary and analysis of Article 12 CRPD
International Journal of Law in Context, 2017
This paper aims to summarise the current understanding and literature around Article 12 of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). It provides a brief history of the key terms associated with the right to equal recognition before the law and encompasses both academic writing in this area and General Comment No. 1 from the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. The content is intended to provide readers of this Special Issue with a general understanding of developments surrounding Article 12 so they can fully engage with the other papers within this Special Issue and with the content of the Voices of Individuals: Collectively Exploring Self-determination (VOICES) project as a whole.
Legal Capacity and Access to Justice: The Right to Participation in the CRPD
Laws, 2016
This article provides an applied analysis of Article 12 (Equal recognition before the law) of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) and Article 13 (Access to justice) in the context of Article 6 (Women with disabilities). Recent literature on the CRPD has extended the analysis of Article 12 to consider its broader relevance for the interpretation of Article 13. The interaction between Article 12 and Article 13 is an emerging issue in CRPD debates. This article argues that the CRPD must be interpreted in light of current human rights theory. It provides a case study of the interaction between Article 12 and Article 13 based on the facts recited in the Court of Appeal case in the United Kingdom (RP v Nottingham City Council (2008)) and RP's petition to the European Court of Human Rights (RP and Others v United Kingdom (2012)). The analysis shows that CRPD principles could and should have been applied in RP's case. It concludes that current practices excluding people with disabilities from participation in legal proceedings are contrary to the CRPD.