The MCA Under Scrutiny: Meeting the Challenges of CRPD Compliance

In the Spring and Summer of 2014, a group of experts convened a series of meetings at the Westminster headquarters of the UK Ministry of Justice (MoJ) in order to determine whether the Mental Capacity Act 2005 (MCA) complies with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). The meetings were organised by the research team of the Essex Autonomy Project (EAP), a research and public policy initiative funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) and based at the University of Essex. The working group included civil servants from the MoJ, the Office of the Public Guardian, and the Department of Health, as well as the Official Solicitor, a senior judge of the Court of Protection, leading academic experts from psychiatry, law and ethics, and representatives of user-group organisations. In September 2014, the EAP research team reported to the MoJ on its findings (http://autonomy.essex.ac.uk/uncrpd-report). This article summarises some of the key arguments and conclusions of that report. Both the report itself and this article represent the views of their respective authors; they should not be taken to represent the views of the MoJ, the AHRC, or the other participants in these consultations.