legal capacity

22 March 2012. Earlier this week, the Mental Disability Advocacy Center held a two-day training event on legal capacity and supported decision-making in Sofia, Bulgaria, for the members of the newly established task force on Bulgarian legal capacity law reform.

In a victory for the rights of persons deprived of legal capacity and placed in institutions by their guardians, the Czech Ombudsman issued an opinion in a case brought by MDAC and its partner organisation in the Czech Republic stating that this practice violates human rights. 

19 December 2011. On Saturday the Venice Commission (an influential group of constitutional law experts) amended one of its key documents. In doing so it reversed an anomaly which allowed countries to exclude people with “genuine mental disabilities” from the ballot box.

13 -14 December 2011, the Mental Disability Advocacy Center is in the Lithuanian capital this week, holding two trainings for local NGOs including disabled people’s organisations and Ombudsman officials.  

On 29-30 November MDAC was on mission in Ireland. Its Executive Director met with the Justice Committee of the Dáil Éireann, and met with a Minister of State and civil servants at the Ministry of Justice. The following day MDAC participated in a high-level seminar on legal capacity law reform organised by Amnesty International Ireland. Read more...

17 November 2011. MDAC congratulates Europe’s top political body which today adopted new standards which advance the right to political participation of people with disabilities.

23 September 2011. Human rights organisations are calling on the Hungarian government to consult civil society in relation to the effective implementation of the recommendations formulated by the UN Human Rights Council during Hungary’s Universal Periodic Review.

Moscow (Russia) and Budapest (Hungary), 22 April 2011. Five years and five months after MDAC filed a case to test the Russian Federation’s guardianship system, the Russian government has plugged the gaps revealed by strategic litigation. The recent law reform provides procedural safeguards to people with disabilities who find themselves trapped in Russia’s still-archaic guardianship system. The Mental Disability Advocacy Center extends its congratulations to Russian policy-makers and civil society, and encourages further action.