Abstract

ROSALES, Juan Endara. Legal capacity deprivation: (un)deserved protection?. Etnográfica [online]. 2020, vol.24, n.1, pp.165-186. ISSN 0873-6561.  https://doi.org/10.4000/etnografica.8341.

Legal capacity deprivation is a legal proceeding widely applied to protect people with cognitive disabilities. It is justified with a legal criterion that considers disability as a persistent disease or deficiency that prevents the person from governing herself. When exploring the lived dimension of the legal capacity deprivation proceedings, it is possible to notice the existence of feelings of injustice, expressed through a language of deservingness. Some aspects are perceived as grievances, both by the people whom these measures are applied to and by those who promote them. Judgers have little to no knowledge of the people these legal measures concern, the measures they impose are loaded with prejudices about disability and there is a denial of fundamental rights. The analysis of the discourses constructed around the experience of legal capacity deprivation proceedings reveals the usefulness of the notion of deservingness to capture the overlapping of legal and moral aspects in the feelings of injustice.

Keywords : legal capacity deprivation; feelings of injustice; deservingness; legal anthropology; critical disability studies.

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