Towards legal capacity for people with intellectual disabilities in the Balkans

Increasing competencies of civil society organisations to advocate and monitor the rights of people with psycho-social and intellectual disabilities in Balkan countries is the aim of the project PERSON (Partnership to Ensure Reforms of Supports in other Nations).

Towards legal capacity for people with intellectual disabilities in the Balkans
etr Balkan countries are countries in the southeast of Europe.

In some Balkan countries,

some people with disabilities still cannot decide for themselves.

Other people make decisions for them.

There is a project to change this.

The name of the project is ‘PERSON’.

This project helps to make sure that all people with disabilities

can make their own decisions.

Governments must change the laws so all people can decide for themselves.

Increasing competencies of civil society organisations to advocate and monitor the rights of people with psycho-social and intellectual disabilities in Balkan countries is the aim of the project PERSON (Partnership to Ensure Reforms of Supports in other Nations).

This two-year initiative brought together Centre for Disability Law and Policy at the National University of Ireland in Galway together with organisations from Serbia (MDRIS), Croatia (SHINE), Bosnia and Herzegovina (SUMERO), Kosovo (ISDY) and Turkey (RUSIHAK) to work on the only disability-related project within the EU Partnership Programmes. Eastern Partnership aims to deepen bilateral relations between the EU and the Eastern European countries. The number of programmes established within the partnership offer the civil society organisations to facilitate the sharing of information and experience towards modernisation and transition.

Legal capacity – a right for everyone

In many European regions, where democracy is still young, people with intellectual disabilities are yet underrepresented. Civil society organisations thus decided to call on the governments in Balkan countries to improve the situation and better implement the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
With this in mind, project partners focused specifically on the implementation of the article 12 of the CRPD:

“States Parties shall recognize that persons with disabilities enjoy legal capacity on an equal basis with others in all aspects of life.
States Parties shall take appropriate measures to provide access by persons with disabilities to the support they may require in exercising their legal capacity.”

Therefore PERSON seeks to enhance the participation of civil society in legislative and policy reform on legal capacity to ensure domestic implementation of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities; and bring together like-minded civil society organisations in the Balkans in order to support people with intellectual disabilities to exercise their rights on an equal basis with others.
What shoud be the project results?
Project partners seek to establish a regional alliance which would advocate for the right to legal capacity for all people with disabilities. Moreover, they will develop a civil strategy for each partner country and the regional guidelines, which will be the leading tools towards supported decision-making.  The regional guidelines and sharing of knowledge throughout the project will thus support the national efforts of states in advocacy.

From a bottom up perspective, PERSON encourages people with psycho-social and intellectual disabilities to participate in the project as well. Through consultations, they can help to develop national pools of expertise, analyse domestic laws and monitor its compliance with international human rights law.

Source: PERSON

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