Contenu
"Imagine living a life by your own will, choices, desires and preferences - wise or unwise; choices constrained no doubt by your relationships, finances, abilities and other circumstances; choices that, had you the chance again, you may make differently - but your choices, nonetheless. Yet imagine a court having the power to overrule your choices or authorise others to do so. To decide where you can live and whether you are allowed to leave that place; to decide if and who you can marry; if and with whom you can be intimate or have any contact; how your finances are handled and money spent; whether you can have a particular medical treatment; or, perhaps worse, whether you can have medical treatment forced on you against your wishes. And imagine if all this can be done, not because you have committed a crime, or done anything unlawful, but because you do not have the necessary level of mental functioning to reach the law's required level for decision-making - you lack the mental capacity to make the decision in question. These are the types of decisions the Court of Protection (CoP) makes every day. It is a jurisdiction relatively under-researched but one which can touch on every aspect of an adult's life in England and Wales. How the CoP does, and should, operate to achieve access to justice in mental capacity law is the focus of this book. This includes the extent to which CoP proceedings involve people affected by its decisions, the type of evidence it considers in reaching decisions on mental capacity and best interests, the ways in which its processes and spaces operate, and use of alternative ways of resolving CoP disputes. In short, I argue that the CoP has not effectively achieved access to justice for the subject of proceedings (referred to throughout as the 'Person'), particularly through its failure to sufficiently place her voice and participation at the centre of its work"--