SWDTC workshop: Universal legal capacity and mental disability: the arguments and the challenges

The case:

The case was brought by some adults with learning disabilities who are subject to guardianship in Hungary.  Under Hungarian Law people under guardianship are subject to a blanket ban on voting.  The claimants had already successfully challenged this in the European Court of Human Rights, who said that this blanket ban violated the ECHR (Alajos Kiss v Hungary (Application no. 38832/06) [2010] ECHR 692).  In response, Hungary instituted individual assessments of voting capacity of people under guardianship.  In this complaint to the United Nations Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, Harvard Law School intervened and argued that even this process violated the CRPD as nobody without disabilities had to prove that they had the mental capacity to vote, even though there might be others in the population who would also fail this assessment.  The Committee found a violation of Article 12 CRPD (equal recognition before the law) and Article 29 CRPD (political participation).

Background reading:
Dhanda, A. (2012) 'Universal Legal Capacity as a Universal Human Right' in Dudley, M., Silove, D. and Gale, F., eds., Mental Health and Human Rights: Vision, praxis, and courage, Oxford: Oxford University Press

Lucy Series obtained her PhD at Exeter University. Currently, she is a Research Associate at Cardiff Law School, working on a project funded by the Nuffield Foundation looking at welfare cases in the Court of Protection.  Her research interests include legal capacity, disability rights and community care law.  Lucy writes a blog about her research called The Small Places, and has written articles for The Guardian, Community Care, Local Government Lawyer, the UK Human Rights Blog and the Mind legal newsletter. 

This workshop is part of a series of events for the SWDTC Advanced Training Programme in theoretical and normative-oriented research.
Staff and students of institutions participating in the SWTDC can claim travel expenses for participation in the event. For further information, please, contact either Dario Castiglione or Torsten Michel in advance of the event.