QAI welcomes the Disability Royal Commission’s enhanced focus on guardianship, substituted and supported decision-making. While the intent behind guardianship legislation is to protect people with impaired decision-making capacity who are unable to make their own decisions, it is also a means through which many people with disability experience significant abuse and exploitation.
The ‘best interests’ approach to decision-making, when combined with a substituted decision-making framework that typically favours the interests of government departments and service providers, and which fails to prevent unnecessary and inappropriate appointments of guardians and administrators, represents an almost insurmountable obstacle to the enjoyment of legal capacity for many people with disability. This is despite recognition by the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities that the realisation of the right to legal capacity is integral to the deinstitutionalization of persons with disabilities. The system, through its ideological and procedural failings, is in and of itself abusive and lacks the accountability that its actions deserve.
QAI’s submission to the Disability Royal Commission is endorsed by:
- ADA Australia
- Amparo Advocacy
- Capricorn Citizen Advocacy
- Mackay Advocacy
- Rights in Action
- SUFY (Speaking Up For You)