scholarly journals ECHR v. UNCRPD: ending restrictions on voting rights of persons with disabilities

ERA Forum ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sanja Jovičić
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Common Ground ◽  
Voting Rights ◽  
Legal Capacity ◽  
Persons With Disabilities ◽  
Right To Vote

AbstractThis article examines the conflicting interpretations of two human rights systems – the UNCRPD and the ECHR – concerning the legal capacity of persons in the exercise of their right to vote, with the aim of finding common ground and promoting equal participation of persons with disabilities in society.

scholarly journals Participación de personas con discapacidad en la vida política. Un análisis de contenido de la literatura reciente (1997-2019)

2021 ◽  
pp. 154-177
Author(s):  
Andrés Mauricio Guzmán Rincón ◽  
Adriana Caballero Pérez
Keyword(s):  
Political Participation ◽  
Voting Rights ◽  
Social Practices ◽  
International Human Rights Law ◽  
Human Rights Law ◽  
Persons With Disabilities ◽  
Academic Literature ◽  
Literature Reviews ◽  
Right To Vote ◽  
The Right

The right of persons with disabilities to vote is well-codified in international human rights law. Disability scholars, however, argue that persons with disabilities are frequently denied the right to vote. What are the recurrent concepts used by disability scholars to discuss this issue? From a content literature review, four main concepts are regularly used by authors to elaborate on voting rights in the context of disability: “political participation,” “barriers,” “electoral practices” that support or constraint the full and effective exercise of the right to vote, and “electoral-assistive devices” as technology solutions to assist voters with disabilities. Discussing all these concepts is uncommon in other literature reviews. Findings illustrate that an abundance of publications focuses on political participation of persons with intellectual or mental impairments. Such publications tend to concentrate only on statutory barriers. Less prevalent is academic literature regarding persons with other impairments, as well as procedural barriers. Even more sparse are publications elaborating on social practices. Similarly, assistive technology is not often discussed as a tool for the facilitation of the right to vote of persons with disabilities.

scholarly journals НЕКИ АСПЕКТИ ПРАВА НА СУДСКУ ЗАШТИТУ ЛИЦА СА МЕНТАЛНИМ СМЕТЊАМА У ПОСТУПКУ ЛИШЕЊА ПОСЛОВНЕ СПОСОБНОСТИ - ПРАКСА ЕВРОПСКОГ СУДА ЗА ЉУДСКА ПРАВА

TEME ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 581
Author(s):  
Dušica Palačković ◽  
Sanda Ćorac
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Fair Trial ◽  
European Convention ◽  
Legal Capacity ◽  
Mental Disabilities ◽  
Persons With Disabilities ◽  
European Court ◽  
Key Concepts ◽  
Protection Of Human Rights ◽  
The Right

The paper analyzes certain important aspects of the procedural position of persons with mental disabilities in the procedures for deprivation of legal capacity. Regardless of the normative framework, both international and national, which largely protects the rights of this sensitive group of people, a significant number of cases before the European Court of Human Rights and decisions in which Contracting States are declared responsible indicate that there is a problem of their procedural position that is principally conditioned by applying (or not applying) the procedural safeguards provided by Article 6 of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, or the right to a fair trial. Although this right is guaranteed for all civil and criminal procedures and for all persons, the special features of persons with mental disabilities also determine the particularities in the application of the right to a fair trial in the court procedures in which these persons are involved. Therefore, we could talk about formulated specific standards that essentially elaborate one of the key concepts of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities - "reasonable adaptation", as well as a direct link to the need for a specific application of the already mentioned Article 6 of the European Convention. The standards that follow from the application of Article 6 are numerous and the analysis of all from the aspect of protecting the rights of persons with mental disabilities is not possible in the paper of this volume, and therefore, special attention was given to the right of these persons to initiate and conduct the procedures for deprivation of legal capacity, personal participation and representation in that procedures.

scholarly journals Legal capacity as a universal human right and a determinant of social status of people with mental disability

Stanovnistvo ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 50 (2) ◽  
pp. 65-83
Author(s):  
Milan Markovic
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Human Life ◽  
Social Determinant ◽  
Legal Capacity ◽  
Human Right ◽  
Persons With Disabilities ◽  
The Right ◽  
Family Abuse ◽  
The Given ◽  
Core Shift

Adoption of the UN Convention on the Right of Persons with Disabilities (2006) brought about a core shift to how the international community and human rights law see and treat human disability in general. This paradigm shift materilizes itself in a number of provisions ranging from those which catalogue the proclaimed human rights as they are in the context of special implementation and protection of people with disabilities, to those that introduce a level of specificity in light of their holders' particular needs. But the strongest presence of the shift to this regard can be found in the Article 12 CRPD that sheds new light on the concept of (legal) capacity of people with (mental) disabilites. According to this norm and put quite simply - there should be no difference in observing and treating capacity of a person with disabilities to that of any other person. This is not only the matter of prohibiting discrimination on grounds of mental impairments, but furthermore preventing the system from establishing a classification in which a person with psychosocial or intellectual impairment would be a second-rate citizen, an object of law or a victim of legal, social and family abuse, someone who is a burden to his entire environment, someone who does not have a say in any case concerning his own life and wellbeing. Legal capacity should not be a goal to be fighting for, but a universal human right. Of course and unfortunatelly, such a shift is purely a formal one, when not causing due reform within the national systems and without proper implementation in the member states. What is thought urgently needed and directly required by the given provision is removing the system features that allow deprivation of legal capacity on the bases of mental impairments and introducing a humane and human rights oriented model in which the decision making of these people would be autonomous and supported, and with only very restricted exceptions, done by them and not on their behalf. This novelty is what some authors call a clash between the systems of capacity and those of incapacity, i.e. the matter of replacing an environment where incapacity is presumed by an environment where capacity is presumed, supported and ensured to the highest attainable degree, and the question of seeing the legal capacity as the main social determinant for any individual. Therefore, the present article introduces the ongoing discussion about the values that this particular international legal norm has embodied and advocates in a way the urgency for change and reform in order to abolish the outrageously negative and detrimental practice in which people with mental impairments do not deserve to be social, economic, political or emotional beings, and are totally deprived of their right as living humans to decide in almost any aspects of the human life. As an illustration of certain negative tendencies existing in the old and current systems of incapacity, some data collected within the Serbian judicial structure has been employed.

Legal capacity for people with dementia: a human rights approach

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eilionóir Flynn
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Law Reform ◽  
Legal Capacity ◽  
Strong Base ◽  
Persons With Disabilities ◽  
People With Dementia ◽  
The World ◽  
The Right ◽  
Rights Issue

This chapter explores the right to legal capacity for people with dementia. The analysis focuses on General Comment 1 of the UN Committee on the rights of persons with disabilities. The chapter also provides some examples of law reform around the world on the issue of legal capacity and considers how these reforms may impact on people with dementia. Finally the chapter considers how the right to legal capacity may be framed in any new UN Convention on the rights of older persons. The chapter argues that legal capacity is a critical human rights issue in the context of dementia and that Article 12 (CRPD) and the general comment 1 provide a strong base for respecting the autonomy and self determination of people with dementia

Connecting the Right of Collective Legal Capacity by Indigenous Peoples with the Right of Individual Legal Capacity by Persons with Disabilities

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 147-183
Author(s):  
Matthew S Smith ◽  
Michael Ashley Stein
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Legal Capacity ◽  
Persons With Disabilities ◽  
American System ◽  
European Court ◽  
United Nations Convention ◽  
The Right ◽  
Three Factor

Abstract This Article explores the juridical implications of indigenous peoples’ right to legal capacity in the Inter-American system for cases involving the same right of persons with disabilities within that system and beyond. It explicates the Inter-American Court of Human Rights’ (IACtHR) three-factor test in Saramaka People v Suriname and analogizes its reasoning with rationales underpinning the right to legal capacity under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (crpd). It then demonstrates how the IACtHR can apply a Saramaka-style test to future cases brought by persons with disabilities challenging legal capacity restrictions. The Article further argues that the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) should also apply this rule to align its legal capacity jurisprudence with the crpd’s mandates. Finally, it suggests that the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (crpd Committee) ought to consider this rule when resolving individual communications and thereby guide courts.

Comparative Views on the Right to Vote in International Law

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shai Dothan
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
International Law ◽  
National Courts ◽  
European Court ◽  
Right To Vote ◽  
The Right ◽  
Democratic Elections ◽  
The Way

There is a consensus about the existence of an international right to vote in democratic elections. Yet states disagree about the limits of this right when it comes to the case of prisoners’ disenfranchisement. Some states allow all prisoners to vote, some disenfranchise all prisoners, and others allow only some prisoners to vote. This chapter argues that national courts view the international right to vote in three fundamentally different ways: some view it as an inalienable right that cannot be taken away, some view it merely as a privilege that doesn’t belong to the citizens, and others view it as a revocable right that can be taken away under certain conditions. The differences in the way states conceive the right to vote imply that attempts by the European Court of Human Rights to follow the policies of the majority of European states by using the Emerging Consensus doctrine are problematic.

Italy

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Delia Ferri
Keyword(s):  
Significant Influence ◽  
Case Law ◽  
Reasonable Accommodation ◽  
Constitutional Court ◽  
Judicial Activism ◽  
Legal Capacity ◽  
Persons With Disabilities ◽  
Indirect Discrimination ◽  
Legal Concepts ◽  
Domestic Law

Italy was among the first countries to sign the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) in 2007, and ratified it in 2009 by Law 18/2009. Since then, the Convention has displayed significant influence on case law, and provoked a degree of judicial activism. This chapter provides an overview of how Italian courts have used and interpreted the CRPD. It highlights how Italian lower and higher courts, including the Constitutional Court and the Court of Cassation, have attempted to overcome the gap between domestic law and the CRPD, by ‘rethinking’ legal concepts in light of the Convention. This is evident with regards to the field of legal capacity and the domestic provisions of the civil code on the ‘administration of support’, but also to non-discrimination legislation, the scope of which has been evidently enlarged to encompass the failure to provide reasonable accommodation as a form of indirect discrimination.

India

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shreya Atrey
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Final Analysis ◽  
Case Law ◽  
Social Model ◽  
Disability Rights ◽  
Appellate Courts ◽  
Persons With Disabilities ◽  
High Courts ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
Domestic Law

This chapter provides an expository account of Indian appellate courts’ engagement with the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) and the developing case law on disability rights. As a dualist State, India has ratified but not incorporated the CRPD into its domestic law. This has not deterred frequent references to the CRPD in litigation at the highest level. The appellate courts—High Courts and the Supreme Court—have resorted to the CRPD in diverse ways. The analysis of the small but not insignificant body of case law shows that these instances can be classified into two broad themes of ‘citation’ and ‘interpretation’. In the final analysis, the overall impact of references to the CRPD can be considered largely positive but still modest in the absence of new legislation embracing the human rights framework and social model of the CRPD in India.

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