Strengthening the Voice of Persons with Mental Health Problems in Legal Capacity Proceedings

Marie Fallon-Kund and Jerome Bickenbach
Additional contact information
Marie Fallon-Kund: Department of Health Sciences and Health Policy, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Lucerne, Frohburgstrasse, 6002 Lucerne, Switzerland
Jerome Bickenbach: Swiss Paraplegic Research, Guido A Zächstrasse 2, 6207 Nottwil, Switzerland

Laws, 2016, vol. 5, issue 3, 1-14

Abstract: Despite the standards set out by the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), states are reluctant to put an end to substitute decision-making regimes all at once. Persons with mental health problems are particularly affected by such regimes that are instituted by independent authorities through legal capacity proceedings. In order to allow the person to express their will and preferences throughout the proceedings, the right to be heard is of primary importance for the person concerned. The objective of this paper is to review the essential support mechanisms as well as procedural accommodations for the implementation of an equal and effective right to be heard for persons with mental health problems. Fulfilling the right to be heard in legal capacity proceedings is a step towards more individualized regimes that promote the autonomy of the person.

Keywords: mental health; legal capacity proceedings; right to be heard (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D78 E61 E62 F13 F42 F68 K0 K1 K2 K3 K4 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2075-471X/5/3/29/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2075-471X/5/3/29/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jlawss:v:5:y:2016:i:3:p:29-:d:72983

Access Statistics for this article

Laws is currently edited by Ms. Heather Liang

More articles in Laws from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().