A/HRC/37/56 lack of accessibility and procedural accommodations; (b) it is a more costly system, which makes access to support less affordable; (c) court delays can compromise access to support; and (d) intense training is required to ensure a paradigm shift in the way judges address the legal capacity of persons with disabilities. 43. In some countries, persons with disabilities can create supported decision-making arrangements through private agreements. Such regimes are voluntary and can be terminated at any time. While those agreements do not require judicial intervention, in many jurisdictions they are usually subject to very rigorous validity requirements and must be notarized and/or registered in order to have legal effect and be monitored. As the procedure can compromise the confidentiality of personal information and could be wrongly perceived as a condition for exercising legal capacity, it requires appropriate regulation to ensure adequate safeguards to avoid compromising the full exercise of legal capacity. 44. Many legal systems also provide for advance directives, which allow individuals to express their will and preferences beforehand, so they can be followed at a time when they may not be in a position to communicate them. The scope of the potential advance decisions is usually specified in each jurisdiction. Advanced health-care directives are among the most common, but some countries allow advanced directives with a broader scope, including personal, patrimonial or finance matters (enduring power of attorney). The person concerned should decide the moment in which an advance directive enters into force and ceases to have effect.17 However, in most jurisdictions advance directives only enter into force when the person is declared legally incapacitated. Moreover, in many countries they are not binding or can be overruled in certain situations. 45. Some countries have implemented regimes of co-decision-making. Under those regimes, an individual appoints a co-decision maker who will make decisions jointly with the appointer in order for those decisions to have legal effect. Such arrangements are usually implemented through private agreements, although some legal frameworks require court intervention. In most jurisdictions, however, the co-decision maker has the power, in certain circumstances, to veto a person’s decision, thus restricting the exercise of their legal capacity. As long as such arrangements are involuntary and the person concerned does not have the right to terminate or change the relationship at any time, the directives cannot be considered as a form of supported decision-making. 46. States have also introduced independent advocates to support persons with disabilities to exercise their legal capacity. In Sweden, for example, independent advocates, called “personal ombudsmen”, conduct outreach and establish relationships of trust with persons with psychosocial disabilities, providing them support in different areas of life, including decision-making. Research has shown that this nationwide scheme provides significant benefits not only to its clients but also to society in general, by reducing the use and the costs of specialized services. 18 In some jurisdictions, however, independent advocates work within the framework of substituted decision-making regimes, assisting individuals who have been deprived of their legal capacity to express their will and preferences and/or to communicate with the guardian or curator. 47. All supported decision-making regimes include a broad range of safeguards. Many jurisdictions require supporters to respect the will and preferences of the individuals, while regretfully others still refer to the “best interest” standard. Several countries have incorporated provisions in their laws to prevent abuses and undue influence, such as time limits, periodic review, requirements for being a supporter, liability, complaint and redress mechanisms, and monitoring. For example, in Ireland the Assisted Decision-Making (Capacity) Act 2015, provides that anyone can lodge an administrative complaint against a decision-making assistant. 48. Many of the efforts towards supported decision-making regimes maintain elements of substitute decision-making and/or coexist with regimes of substitute decision-making. In 17 18 See Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, general comment No. 1, para. 17. See Sverige Socialstyrelsen, “A new profession is born: personligt ombud, PO” (2008), p. 24. 11