The Flag of Imagination: Peru's New Reform on Legal Capacity for Persons with Intellectual and Psychosocial Disabilities and the Need for New Understandings in Private Law
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17561/tahrj.v14.5482Keywords:
Human rights, disability studies, Peruvian civil law, legal capacity reform, supported decision-making, UN Convention on the rights of persons with disabilitiesAbstract
This paper analyzes the recent reform regarding the legal capacity of persons with disabilities in Peru. It provides a domestic legal and judicial context in which the reform was adopted. Following this, the paper aims to analyze the reform’s conformity with article 12 of the Convention on the rights of persons with disabilities, noting that the current regulation is only partially CRPD compliant. The current design of judicially designated supporters can be understood as valid under specific interpretations of Article 12, while the design of safeguards does not comply with such standard. The paper addresses the impact of legal capacity reform in traditional private law theory of the juridical act. Currently, the Peruvian system does not provide clear or accurate standards to respond to this problem. The paper shines a light on the need to rethink multiple concepts of private law in order to make legal capacity reform fully operational.
References
ARSTEIN-KERSLAKE, A. and Flynn, E. (2016) The General Comment on Article 12 of the Convention on the Rights of Persons wth Disabilities: A Roadmap for Equality before the Law. The International Journal of Human Rights, 20(3), 471–90. https://doi.org/10.1080/13642987.2015.1107052 (Last accessed on October 10th, 2019).
BOLAÑOS SALAZAR, E. R. (2018) La Reforma Del Régimen Peruano de Interdicción de Personas Con Discapacidad Mental y Psicosocial Desde La Perspectiva de Los Derechos Humanos. Thesis to obtain a JD equivalent. Lima: Universidad San Martín de Porres. https://bit.ly/33lSxAz
BREGAGLIO LAZARTE, R. A., & Constantino Caycho, R. A. (2020). Un modelo para armar: La regulación de la capacidad jurídica de las personas con discapacidad en el Perú a partir del Decreto Legislativo 1384. Revista Latinoamericana en Discapacidad, Sociedad y Derechos Humanos, 4, 28.
BRETON, A. (1972) Manifestoes of Surrealism. 1st edn. as an Ann Arbor paperback. Ann Arbor Paperbacks 182. Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan Press.
BROSNAN, L, and Eilionóir F. (2017). Freedom to Negotiate: A Proposal Extricating ‘Capacity’ from ‘Consent’. International Journal of Law in Context 13(1), 58–76. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1744552316000471 (Last accessed on October 10th, 2019).
CASTILLO FREYRE, M. (2005). El defectuoso anteproyecto de reforma al Código Civil y las Personas Naturales, online: Estudio Mario Castillo Freyre <https://www.castillofreyre.com/archivos/pdfs/articulos/las_personas_naturales_y_el_anteproyecto.pdf>.
COMMITTEE ON THE RIGHTS OF PERSONS WITH DISABILITIES (2014) General Comment No. 1 (2014) Article 12: Equal Recognition before the Law. CRPD/C/GC/1.
CONGRESO DE LA REPÚBLICA DE PERÚ. (2017). Análisis de proyectos de ley que modifican el Código Civil en materia de capacidad jurídica de personas con discapacidad. 6 October, 2017. http://www2.congreso.gob.pe/Sicr/Prensa/heraldo.nsf/00NoticiasArchivo/8455a4f6e95f2555052581b1006a8c72/?OpenDocument
DAVID, R. (1968/1978) Major Legal Systems in the World Today: An Introduction to the Comparative Study of Law. Translated by John E. C. Brierley. 2nd edn. New York, New York: Free Press.
DAWSON, J. (2015). A Realistic Approach to Assessing Mental Health Laws’ Compliance with the UNCRPD. International Journal of Law and Psychiatry 40, 70–79. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijlp.2015.04.003 (Last accessed on October 10th, 2019).
DE BHAILÍS, C., & Flynn, E. (2017). Recognising legal capacity: Commentary and analysis of Article 12 CRPD. International Journal of Law in Context, 13(01), 6–21. https://doi.org/10.1017/S174455231600046X
DEL VILLAR, K. (2015). Should Supported Decision-Making Replace Substituted Decision-Making? The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and Coercive Treatment under Queensland’s Mental Health Act 2000. Laws 4(2), 173–200. https://doi.org/10.3390/laws4020173. (Last accessed on October 10th, 2019).
DEVANDAS, C. (2017). Report of the Special Rapporteur on the rights of persons with disabilities. A/HRC/37/56.
DHANDA, A. (2017). Conversations between the proponents of the new paradigm of legal capacity. International Journal of Law in Context, 13(01), 87–95. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1744552316000501
DINERSTEIN, R. D. (2012). Implementing Legal Capacity Under Article 12 of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities: The Difficult Road From Guardianship to Supported Decision-Making. Human Rights Brief 19(2), 8-12.
DINERSTEIN, R; Grewal, E and Martinis, J (2016). Emerging International Trends and Practices in Guardianship Law for People with Disabilities. ILSA Journal of International & Comparative Law 22(2), 436-460. https://works.bepress.com/robert-dinerstein/1/ (Last accessed on October 10th, 2019).
FLYNN, E. and Arstein-Kerslake, A. (2017). State Intervention in the Lives of People swith Disabilities: The Case for a Disability-Neutral Framework. International Journal of Law in Context 13(1), 39–57. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1744552316000495 (Last accessed on October 10th, 2019).
GOODING, P. (2013). Supported Decision-Making: A Rights-Based Disability Concept and Its Implications for Mental Health Law. Psychiatry, Psychology and Law 20(3), 431–451. https://doi.org/10.1080/13218719.2012.711683 (Last accessed on October 10th, 2019).
GOODING, P. and Flynn, E (2015). Querying the Call to Introduce Mental Capacity Testing to Mental Health Law: Does the Doctrine of Necessity Provide an Alternative? Laws 4(2), 245–271. https://doi.org/10.3390/laws4020245 (Last accessed on October 10th, 2019).
HOFFMAN, I, and Könczei, G. (2010). Legal Regulations Relating to the Passive and Active Legal Capacity of Persons with Intellectual and Psychosocial Disabilities in Light of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and the Impending Reform of the Hungarian Civil Code. Loy. L.A. Int’l & Comp. L. Rev 33(1), 143-173.
HOLMES, O. W. (1897). The Path of the Law. Harvard Law Review 10(8), 457-478.
IGLESIAS FRECHA, J. M. (2017). ‘Discursos Jurídicos En Torno a Los Apoyos Para Ejercicio de La Capacidad Jurídica y La Vida Independiente en 2017 ¿Qué Dicen Las/Os Jueces de La Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires En Sus Fallos?’, VI Jornadas Nacionales Discapacidad y Derechos, Neuquén, Argentina, 14-15 june.
KITTAY, E. F. (2005). ‘Equality, Dignity, and Disability.’ In Lyonns M Ann and Fionnuala Waldron (eds) Perspectives on Equality. The Second Seamus Heaney Lectures. Dublin: The Liffey Press, 93-119.
KITTAY, E. F. (2005). Equality, Dignity, and Disability. In M. A. Lyons & F. Waldron (Eds.), Perspectives on Equality The Second Seamus Heaney Lectures (p. 28). The Liffey Press.
LEHMAN, J, and Shirelle P (eds) (1998/2005). West’s Encyclopedia of American Law. 2nd ed. Detroit: Thomson/Gale.
MARTIN, W. and Gurbai, S. (2019). Surveying the Geneva Impasse: Coercive Care and Human Rights. International Journal of Law and Psychiatry, 64, 117–28. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijlp.2019.03.001 (Last accessed on October 10th, 2019).
MARTIN, W; Michalowski, S; Stavert, J; Ward, A; Ruck Keene, A; Caughey, C; Hempsey, A and Mcgregor, R (2016). Three Jurisdictions Report. Towards Compliance with CRPD Art. 12 in Capacity/Incapacity Legislation across the UK. Essex: Essex Autonomy Project. https://autonomy.essex.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/EAP-3J-Final-Report-2016.pdf (Last accessed on October 10th,2019).
MARTINEZ-PUJALTE, A. (2019). Legal Capacity and Supported Decision-Making: Lessons from Some Recent Legal Reforms. Laws 8(1), 4, 1-22. https://doi.org/10.3390/laws8010004 (Last accessed on October 10th, 2019).
MINKOWITZ, T. (2017). CRPD and transformative equality. International Journal of Law in Context, 13(01), 77–86. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1744552316000483
MINKOWITZ, T. (2018). Peruvian Legal Capacity Reform – Celebration and Analysis. [Blog]. Mad in America. https://www.madinamerica.com/2018/10/peruvian-legalcapacity-reform-celebration-and-analysis (Last accessed on October 10th, 2019).
SCHMIDT, J. P. (2012). ‘Juridical Act’. In “Juridical Act.” In Jürgen Basedow, Klaus J. Hopt, and Reinhard Zimmermann (eds) The Max Planck Encyclopedia of European Private Law, edited by. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
SEFTON-GREEN, R. (2005). Mistake, fraud and duties to inform in European contact law. Cambridge University Press.
SERIES, L. (2014). Submission to the Committee on the Rights of Personas with Disabilities. Available at: https://www.ohchr.org/EN/HRBodies/CRPD/Pages/DGCArticles12And9.aspx
SZMUKLER, G. and Bach, M. (2015). Mental Health Disabilities and Human Rights Protections. Global Mental Health 2(e20), 1-9. https://doi.org/10.1017/gmh.2015.18 (Last accessed on October 10th, 2019).
SZMUKLER, G. (2018). Men in white coats: Treatment under coercion. (First edition). Oxford University Press.
VERANO, C. Constantino, R and Bregaglio, R. (2018). Selección de jurisprudencia del Tribunal Constitucional del Perú en materia de discapacidad desde la entrada en vigor de la Convención sobre los Derechos de las Personas con Discapacidad. Revista Latinoamericana en Discapacidad, Sociedad y Derechos Humanos 2, 185-204. http://redcdpd.net/revista/index.php/revista/article/download/120/67 (Last accessed on October 10th, 2019).
