Language and Cognition Seminar - Universal legal capacity: A human rights approach to supported-decision making

Speaker: Dr Lucy Series Cardiff University, School of Law and Politics

The UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) has focussed attention on support for the exercise of legal capacity, including supported decision-making. Experts in language and cognition have potentially important contributions to make to this pressing human rights question. Dr Lucy Series will outline the human rights approach to supported decision-making, and explain how this differs from the approach taken in England and Wales under the Mental Capacity Act 2005. She will then suggest ways that professionals working within the confines of the Mental Capacity Act 2005 can maximise their compliance with the CRPD.