A/HRC/10/48 page 15 disabilities to self-determination; of alternative and augmentative communication; of supported decision-making, as the process whereby a person with a disability is enabled to make and communicate decisions with respect to personal or legal matters; and the establishment of regulations clarifying the legal responsibilities of supporters and their liability. 46. Norms of laws disqualifying a person from office or performing a function on the basis of their disability also need to be abolished. These include norms disqualifying persons with disabilities from running for political positions, or from participating in juries or as witnesses to legal acts. 47. In the area of criminal law, recognition of the legal capacity of persons with disabilities requires abolishing a defence based on the negation of criminal responsibility because of the existence of a mental or intellectual disability.41 Instead disability-neutral doctrines on the subjective element of the crime should be applied, which take into consideration the situation of the individual defendant. Procedural accommodations both during the pretrial and trial phase of the proceedings might be required in accordance with article 13 of the Convention, and implementing norms must be adopted. 5. Right to liberty and security of the person 48. A particular challenge in the context of promoting and protecting the right to liberty and security of persons with disabilities is the legislation and practice related to health care and more specifically to institutionalization without the free and informed consent of the person concerned (also often referred to as involuntary or compulsory institutionalization). Prior to the entrance into force of the Convention, the existence of a mental disability represented a lawful ground for deprivation of liberty and detention under international human rights law.42 The Convention radically departs from this approach by forbidding deprivation of liberty based on the existence of any disability, including mental or intellectual, as discriminatory. Article 14, paragraph 1 (b), of the Convention unambiguously states that “the existence of a disability shall in no case justify a deprivation of liberty”. Proposals made during the drafting of the Convention to limit the prohibition of detention to cases “solely” determined by disability were rejected.43 As a result, unlawful detention encompasses situations where the deprivation of liberty is grounded in the combination between a mental or intellectual disability and other elements such as dangerousness, or care and treatment. Since such measures are partly justified by the person’s 41 Often referred to as “insanity defence”. 42 See for reference the Principles for the Protection of Persons with Mental Illness and the Improvement of Mental Health Care, A/RES/46/119, available at: http://www.un.org/documents/ ga/res/46/a46r119.htm. 43 In the course of the third session of the Ad Hoc Committee on a Comprehensive and Integral International Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Rights and Dignity of Persons with Disabilities, proposals were made to add the word “solely” to then draft article 10, paragraph 1 (b), so it would read “any deprivation of liberty shall be in conformity with the law and in no case shall be based solely on disability”.

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