scholarly journals Implementation of Political Participation Standards for Persons with Intellectual Disabilities in Kenya

2016 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 97-131
Author(s):  
Luciana Thuo
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Political Participation ◽  
Intellectual Disabilities ◽  
International Standards ◽  
Political Rights ◽  
Persons With Disabilities ◽  
Participation Rights ◽  
Progressive Inclusion ◽  
The Right ◽  
Disability Movement

This paper reviews international standards on political participation by persons with intellectual disabilities and how they are implemented in Kenya. On one hand, Article 25 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights(ICCPR) allows limitation of rights based on ‘reasonable and objective’ criteria. Whereas it is considered unreasonable to restrict participation rights of persons with physical disabilities, General Comment 25 to the ICCPR permits restrictions based on ‘established mental incapacity’. On the other hand, the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) does not foresee any limitation of participation rights; rather it recognises the freedom of persons with disabilities to be involved in decision-making, including the right to vote and hold public office. Kenya is a party to both instruments, having acceded to the ICCPR in 1972 and ratified the CRPD in 2008. Kenya’s law does not deprive persons with intellectual disabilities of legal capacity. In fact, Article 54(2) of the Constitution of Kenya (2010 Constitution)seeks to increase participation of persons with disabilities in decision making and public life by providing, inter alia, for the progressive inclusion of persons with disabilities in at least five percent of all elective and nominated positions. Whereas Kenya’s law allows for limited guardianship, it is the informal guardianship created by the family, on whom persons with intellectual disabilities are dependent for support, which poses the greatest barrier to the exercise of participation rights. This informal guardianship, combined with negative societal attitudes and ignorance at all levels including the Judiciary, the electoral management body (the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC)) and even the wider disability movement, makes political participation rights for persons with intellectual disabilities illusory. If the situation of persons with intellectual disabilities is not addressed, only persons with physical and sensory disabilities will be able to take up the affirmative action measure created by Article 54(2) of the 2010 Constitution.

Supported Decision-Making and Personal Autonomy for Persons with Intellectual Disabilities: Article 12 of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities

2013 ◽  
Vol 41 (4) ◽  
pp. 792-806 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nandini Devi
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Intellectual Disabilities ◽  
Personal Autonomy ◽  
Self Determination ◽  
Persons With Disabilities ◽  
Equal Recognition ◽  
Conceptual Skills ◽  
Adults With Intellectual Disabilities ◽  
The Right ◽  
Everyday Living

Making decisions is an important component of everyday living, and issues surrounding autonomy and self-determination are crucial for persons with intellectual disabilities. Adults with intellectual disabilities are characterized by the limitations in their intellectual functioning and in their adaptive behavior, which compromises three skill types (conceptual skills, social skills, and practical skills), and this starts before the age of 18. Though persons with intellectual disabilities are characterized by having these limitations, they are thought to face significant decisionmaking challenges due to their disability. Moving away from this generalization, Article 12 (Equal recognition before the law) of the United Nations (UN) Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (herewith called “the Convention”) addresses this issue of decision-making for persons with disabilities, recognizing the right to legal capacity.

How Persons with Intellectual Disabilities Are Fighting for Decision-Making Rights

2022 ◽  
Vol 121 (831) ◽  
pp. 30-35
Author(s):  
Chester A. Finn ◽  
Matthew S. Smith ◽  
Michael Ashley Stein
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Intellectual Disability ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Intellectual Disabilities ◽  
Legal Capacity ◽  
Disability Rights ◽  
Persons With Disabilities ◽  
New Approach ◽  
The United Nations

Paternalistic attitudes about what is in the interests of a person with an intellectual disability have long led to abuses, and are embedded in the guardianship laws still in place in most countries. Self-advocates, who identify as people with intellectual or other disabilities and are committed to demanding their rights and educating others about them, are calling for a new approach. They have found support for reforms in the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, adopted by the United Nations in 2006 and since acceded to by 182 countries. By supporting the fundamental right of those with disabilities to make decisions, it has enabled disability rights advocates to successfully challenge legal capacity restrictions and push for “supported decision-making.”

scholarly journals Pemenuhan Hak Politik Penyandang Disabilitas Mental dalam Pemilihan Umum

Kosmik Hukum ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Rizkon Maulana ◽  
Indriati Amarini ◽  
Ika Ariani Kartini
Keyword(s):  
Secondary Data ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Rights ◽  
Mental Disabilities ◽  
Persons With Disabilities ◽  
General Elections ◽  
Pros And Cons ◽  
Right To Vote ◽  
The Right ◽  
Political Right

The fulfillment of political rights for persons with mental disabilities in general elections has not been running as it should be. Pros and cons arise when collecting data on citizens who have the right to vote at the time of general elections. This research analyzes how the fulfillment of the political rights of persons with mental disabilities in legislation and the obstacles experienced in fulfilling the political rights of persons with mental disabilities. This research is a normative juridical study using secondary data as the main data, namely books, journals, research results, and legislation. Secondary data were analyzed normatively qualitative. The results showed that the political rights of persons with disabilities, including persons with mental disabilities, are a component of human rights that must be fulfilled in a democratic country. The fulfillment of the political rights of persons with disabilities is generally based on Law Number 8 of 2016, namely Article 13 which stipulates that persons with disabilities have the political right to vote and be elected in public office. These rights are important to be respected, protected and fulfilled in order to achieve justice for eliminating political discrimination against persons with disabilities. As for the obstacles experienced in fulfilling the political rights of persons with mental disabilities, namely the difficulty in conveying socialization materials to persons with mental disabilities and the level of voter participation among persons with mental disabilities is still low.Keywords: Political Rights, General Election, Mental Disability

The Right to Political Participation in Sub-Saharan Africa

2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 128-161
Author(s):  
Christof Heyns ◽  
Charles Fombad ◽  
Pansy Tlakula ◽  
Jimmy Kainja
Keyword(s):  
Political Participation ◽  
Freedom Of Expression ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Political Rights ◽  
Political Systems ◽  
International Treaties ◽  
The People ◽  
Sub Saharan ◽  
The Right

The effective realisation of the right to political participation is essential for the legitimacy of political systems and for enabling the people to shape, and assume responsibility for, their lives. Although the right to political participation is recognised in article 25 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights as well as in other international treaties, its realisation in practice is often partial, it depends on the extent to which numerous interrelated rights, such as those to freedom of expression, access to information and peaceful protest, have been secured. Focusing on sub-Saharan Africa, this article examines the right to political participation as set out in national constitutions and in the instruments of the United Nations, the African Union and sub-regional bodies. It also considers the role of social media in this context. The article concludes by suggesting how this crucial right could be implemented more effectively in Africa.

Legislating personhood: realising the right to support in exercising legal capacity

2014 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 81-104 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eilionoir Flynn ◽  
Anna Arstein-Kerslake
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Political Philosophy ◽  
United Nations ◽  
People With Disabilities ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Legal Capacity ◽  
Mental Disabilities ◽  
Persons With Disabilities ◽  
United Nations Convention ◽  
The Right

AbstractThis paper examines the regulation of ‘personhood’ through the granting or denying of legal capacity. It explores the development of the concept of personhood through the lens of moral and political philosophy. It highlights the problem of upholding cognition as a prerequisite for personhood or the granting of legal capacity because it results in the exclusion of people with cognitive disabilities (intellectual, psycho-social, mental disabilities, and others). The United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) challenges this notion by guaranteeing respect for the right to legal capacity for people with disabilities on an equal basis with others and in all areas of life (Article 12). The paper uses the CRPD to argue for a conception of personhood that is divorced from cognition and a corresponding recognition of legal capacity as a universal attribute that all persons possess. Finally, a support model for the exercise of legal capacity is proposed as a possible alternative to the existing models of substituted decision-making that deny legal capacity and impose outside decision-makers.

scholarly journals Canada Should Retain Its Reservation on the United Nation’s Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities

2018 ◽  
Vol 63 (12) ◽  
pp. 809-812
Author(s):  
Mathieu Dufour ◽  
Thomas Hastings ◽  
Richard O’Reilly
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Decision Making ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Psychotic Disorders ◽  
Persons With Disabilities ◽  
Not Criminally Responsible ◽  
The United Nations ◽  
The Right

The United Nations adopted the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) in 2006. When Canada ratified the CRPD, it reserved the right to continue using substitute decision making schemes even if the CRPD was ‘interpreted as requiring their elimination’. This was a prescient decision because the CRPD Committee, which is tasked with overseeing the interpretation and implementation of the CRPD, subsequently opined that all legislation supporting substitute decision making schemes contravene the CRPD and must be revoked. The CRPD Committee insists that every person can make decisions with sufficient support and that if a person lacks capacity to make a decision, we must rely on their ‘will and preferences’. Many international legal scholars have called this interpretation unrealistic. We agree and, in this article, describe how this unrealistic approach would result in extensive harm and suffering for people with severe cognitive or psychotic disorders. The reader should also be aware that the CRPD Committee also calls for the elimination of all mental health acts and the United Nations Commissioner for Human Rights for the abandonment of the not criminally responsible (NCR) defence.

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 Intellectual Disability Nursing

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Mental Retardation ◽  
Intellectual Disability ◽  
Developmental Disabilities ◽  
Intellectual Disabilities ◽  
Special Needs ◽  
Negative Attitudes ◽  
Persons With Disabilities ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World

Persons with mental retardation enter a group of persons with disabilities. We also use the term “persons with developmental disabilities” and “persons with special needs” but recently, for persons with mental retardation, we use the term “persons with intellectual disabilities”. Sometimes negative opinions and negative attitudes, violence and discrimination were not directed against them, but such practices were advancing to the social pattern of behavior towards them. Even today we are witnessing that there is still a pattern of behavior toward them. Although society has been educating and expanding its vision and understanding of the world around it, it often happens that their abilities and their abilities create superficial conclusions. The presence of mental retardation does not justify any form of discrimination. Although more and more institutions dealing with improving the lives of persons with intellectual disabilities, they are in some ways deprived of their own choice and decision-making.

scholarly journals Popular Political Participation in the Late Roman Republic

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Claudine Lana Earley
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Collective Action ◽  
Political Participation ◽  
Roman Republic ◽  
Popular Participation ◽  
Popular Pressure ◽  
Distribution Of Power ◽  
The Right ◽  
Late Roman

<p>Roman democracy is in fashion. In particular, the publication of Fergus Millar's The Crowd in the Late Republic (1998) has stimulated debate on the democratic elements in Roman government during this period. In this thesis I examine the nature of popular participation in the late Roman Republic. I focus on the decision-making power of the populus Romanus and popular pressure to effect reform in the favour of citizens outside the senatorial and equestrian orders. My findings are based on analysis of ancient literary and epigraphic sources, along with a critique of modern research on the topic. The first chapter introduces the subject with a survey of current scholarly opinion and discussion of key concepts and terms. Chapter Two investigates how power was shared between senatus populusque Romanus and the distribution of power in the assemblies, concluding that participation was widespread as a result of the changing circumstances in the late Republic. As farmers and veterans moved to Rome, and slaves were freed and granted citizenship and the right to vote, the balance was tipped in the favour of the non-elite voter. Each class of the populus Romanus could participate in Roman politics, and certainly members of each did. Having concluded my analysis of the formal avenues of participation, I move onto the informal. Chapter Three is the first of three chapters of case studies focusing on demonstrations and collective action which form the heart of this work. The first set of studies cover secession, mutiny and refusal of the draft. Chapter Four continues with studies of popular pressure to gain reforms to improve the food supply, restore tribunician power, obtain relief from crippling debt and land shortage. The final chapter of analysis, Chapter Five, investigates collective action at contiones, legislative assemblies, trials, ludi et gladiatores, triumphs, funerals, and elections. The findings of these three chapters bring me to the conclusion that Rome was a democracy, if of a particular type. The nature of popular political participation in the late Republic resembled that of an emerging democracy with the non-elite gaining an increasing role in the decision-making process, albeit without constitutional definition. The citizens' right to participate in the formal assemblies was augmented by their ability to take part in less formal ways also. These informal methods ranged from popular involvement in contiones through to the application of pressure on senators through the threat of secession and mutiny. Only the rise of the principate, with formalised roles for the various sectors in society under one leader, brought these developments to an end.</p>

scholarly journals Supported Decision-Making and Paradigm Shifts: Word Play or Real Change?

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jill Stavert
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Decision Making ◽  
Legal Capacity ◽  
Paradigm Shifts ◽  
Mental Disabilities ◽  
Ongoing Debate ◽  
Persons With Disabilities ◽  
Word Play ◽  
Real Change ◽  
The Right

Article 12(3) CRPD requires states parties to provide access by persons with disabilities to the support they may require in exercising their legal capacity. This is to ensure that the rights, will and preferences of persons with disabilities are enjoyed on an equal basis with others [Articles 12(1)(2) and (4) CRPD]. Moreover, the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities has made it clear that supported decision-making must replace substitute decision-making arrangements as these are discriminatory and deny equal enjoyment of the right to exercise of legal capacity for persons. At the same time, there is ongoing debate as to whether or not the absence of substitute decision-making regimes is essential for the non-discriminatory realization of an individual's rights, will and preferences to be achieved. To resolve this debate, however, specific attention needs to be paid to the CRPD message on what it actually means to give effect to the equal and non-discriminatory enjoyment of rights for all. In the context of persons with mental disabilities this requires looking beyond human rights simply in terms of limiting unwarranted interventions to the proactive removal of obstacles to full rights enjoyment and the creation of environments that respect and support such enjoyment. With this in mind this paper will therefore critically consider the use of supported decision-making within existing substitute decision-making regimes with particular reference to Scotland's mental health and capacity laws. It will consider the challenges this poses and whether it is indeed possible to adapt existing regimes to achieve CRPD compliance. In doing so, it is suggested that a full appreciation of the overarching CRPD message about equality and non-discrimination in the enjoyment of rights is required to bring about such compliance.

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