This chapter describes the framework we use to analyze whether Ontario’s existing mechanisms for monitoring and overseeing guardians effectively protect the rights and interests of persons with disabilities who are subject to guardianships. This framework will also be used to make recommendations for reforms to law and policy to ensure that those rights and interests are more effectively safeguarded. 

The approach we take is a rights-based principled approach. It is important to include both rights and principles when analyzing the efficacy of Ontario’s current monitoring mechanisms. Principles guide our thinking, analysis, recommendations and actions. They articulate important values and goals that we strive to achieve. Legal rights provide a vehicle by which principles become real for individuals.  Rights are concrete, actionable and enforceable, making them meaningful for people who experience disadvantage and discrimination.

Our rights-based principled approach draws on the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and the LCO’s Framework for the Law as It Affects Persons with Disabilities (“Framework”). Article 12 of the CRPD provides that persons with disabilities have a right to legal capacity on an equal basis as others. Drawing on the principles articulated in other CRPD articles, we develop an analysis of the meaning of the right to legal capacity in Article 12. Many of these same principles are reflected in the LCO’s Framework. We briefly describe the LCO’s Framework, focusing on those similar principles. Synthesizing the analysis of the right to legal capacity and the principles articulated in the LCO’s Framework, we develop a rights-based principled approach to legal capacity.

 

A.    Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities

On May 3, 2008 the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities entered into force. This was a watershed moment for the international disability community. The CRPD represents global recognition that people with disabilities are citizens, capable of claiming their rights and freedoms, making decisions based on free and informed consent, and being active members of society.[3] “In 50 articles, the CRPD clearly articulates what existing human rights mean within a disability context and establishes reporting and monitoring procedures for States Parties.”[4]

The CRPD has been described as a Convention of firsts: it was the first human rights treaty of the twenty-first century, the fastest negotiated human rights convention in UN history, and the first human rights convention with an explicit social development dimension.[5] Perhaps most important, it was the first time that civil society actively participated in the development and negotiation of the text of a convention. The inclusion of people with disabilities and disability organizations was particularly poignant, given that historically, people with disabilities have been disadvantaged and discriminated against by being removed or excluded from services, education, politics, employment, and social life in general. According to some, by the passage of the CRPD, “the most excluded group of people in society became the most included in the history of the United Nations.”[6]

Article 12 of the CRPD deals with legal capacity, and provides that:

States Parties reaffirm that persons with disabilities have the right to recognition everywhere as persons before the law.

States Parties shall recognize that persons with disabilities enjoy legal capacity on an equal basis with others in all aspects of life.

States Parties shall take appropriate measures to provide access by persons with disabilities to the support they may require in exercising their legal capacity.

States Parties shall ensure that all measures that relate to the exercise of legal capacity provide for appropriate and effective safeguards to prevent abuse in accordance with international human rights law. Such safeguards shall ensure that measures relating to the exercise of legal capacity respect the rights, will and preferences of the person, are free of conflict of interest and undue influence, are proportional and tailored to the person’s circumstances, apply for the shortest time possible and are subject to regular review by a competent, independent and impartial authority or judicial body. The safeguards shall be proportional to the degree to which such measures affect the person’s rights and interests.[7]

During the negotiation of the CRPD, Article 12 was one of the most controversial and contested articles.[8] States disagreed on the nature of substitute-decision-making arrangements, what due process protections should be in place, and what kinds of supports should be provided in the context of legal capacity.[9] A key dispute was whether it was necessary to distinguish between legal capacity to possess rights and legal capacity to act. The final version of Article 12 recognizes legal capacity to the fullest extent. It includes the right to recognition as a person before the law and the right to legal capacity. Capacity to be a person before the law endows individuals with the right to have their status and capacity recognized in law. Legal capacity is a broader concept; it is based upon the capacity to be a holder of legal rights and obligations, but also includes the capacity to act.[10]

The substance of Article 12 must be interpreted with reference to the CRPD as a whole, in order to understand the full extent of the rights and obligations outlined therein.[11] The foundational elements of the CRPD, specifically the Preamble and Article 3, inform a full understanding of Article 12. Article 3 outlines general principles, which apply to all articles in the CRPD. As articulated by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the eight general principles, “guide the interpretation and implementation of the entire Convention, cutting across all issues. They are the starting point for understanding and interpreting the rights of persons with disabilities, providing benchmarks against which each right is measured.”[12]

The Preamble to the CRPD recognizes the, “importance for persons with disabilities of their individual autonomy and independence, including the freedom to make their own choices.”[13] Similarly, Article 3 includes the principles:

  • respect for inherent dignity, individual autonomy including the freedom to make one’s own choices, and independence of persons; and
  • full and effective participation and inclusion in society.[14]

These articles make it clear that individual autonomy and the freedom to make one’s own decisions are crucial aspects of human dignity and personhood. Having the right to make one’s own decisions, on an equal basis as others, is an important part of the goal of full and effective participation and inclusion in society. For the disability community, this is particularly true, given that people with disabilities have been, and still are, discriminated against and disadvantaged by excluding them from society. The right to legal capacity, is, therefore, closely tied to emancipatory goals.

This understanding of the significance of legal capacity is confirmed by considering the relationship between Article 12 and other articles that relate to decision-making. Article 25 includes the right to make health care decisions on the basis of free and informed consent. Article 19 discusses the right to live independently and be included in the community. It provides that, “persons with disabilities have the opportunity to choose their place of residence and where and with whom they live…” Article 23 includes the right to marry and found a family on the basis of free consent of both spouses, and the right to decide on the number and spacing of children. Article 16 provides for freedom from exploitation, violence and abuse.[15] Decisions regarding o