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Mental Capacity and Adoption

In working on an ECtHR application which hopefully over time we will publish I have reviewed X v Croatia that refers to two pieces of international law (nothing to do with the EU). The European Convention on Adoption is one. This shows how far out of line England is on these issues. The second is Principles concerning the legal protection of incapable adults this is not available in a text form although I am going to try to run it through an OCR and post it later. In England we seem to use the mental capacity process to remove rights from people rather than protect their rights.

Comments

Unknown said…
[[...The European Convention on Adoption is one. This shows how far out of line England is on these issues...]]

How does it show that? I'm curious.
John Hemming said…
2. The competent authority shall not:
dispense with the consent of any person mentioned in paragraph 1 of this article, or
overrule the refusal to consent of any person or body mentioned in the said paragraph 1,
save on exceptional grounds determined by law.

We don't use "exceptional" grounds. It is more like "run of the mill".
Anonymous said…
But surely the foundation principles of the Mental Capacity Act 2005 verify that capacity is always assumed in the UK law as a matter of course so it is absolutely not 'run of the mill'. It seems to be an very expedient interpretation of the law that suits some political agendas.
The process of 'removing rights' is not just a process. It takes place in the context of an automatic assumption of capacity.
John Hemming said…
I was there referring to the process of adoptoin.

The question of mental capacity is a completely different piscine kettle.

There are a lot of problems here that are being raised in Strasbourg.

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