People with intellectual disabilities in the East Coast province of Nova Scotia will soon get to live with more autonomy.
Justice Minister Mark Furey says new legislation will recognize that a person with an intellectual disability will have the right to live their own life and make their own decisions.
Those provisions will apply except when a court rules there is an impairment of capacity.
The proposed legislation will allow someone to apply to a court to represent another adult in making decisions in one or more areas where the adult has shown not to have the necessary capacity to decide.
After experts assess the (intellectually disabled) adult’s capacity to make decisions, a court will then decide if the adult making the request is a suitable representative
The proposed Adult Capacity and Decision Making Act will replace the former Incompetent Persons Act that gave complete control to a guardian for all aspects of an intellectually disabled person’s decision making.
The Nova Scotia Supreme Court ruled last year that the Incompetent Persons Act violated Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms and ordered the province to enact new legislation by the end of this year.
The new act, tabled in the legislature on Monday, includes a “presumption of capacity.”
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