Citizens’ Rights for All (Warsaw, Poland)

Full citizens’ rights and legal protection for people with intellectual disabilities, Warsaw, 10-12 May 2007

The Congress examined what is required to ensure that people with intellectual disabilities enjoy legal capacity on an equal basis with others in all aspects of life, the support they may need to exercise this capacity, and how we can work to achieve necessary new laws and arrangements.

It was a great opportunity to share ideas across Europe about how best people with intellectual disabilities can get both the legal status and personal support to take control of their own lives, while also being protected from harm and exploitation. This is a big challenge in that many people, not least in the new EU Member States, are being deprived of their rights e.g. to work, to marry and to vote, by outdated legal ‘incapacitation’. It was also a big opportunity to learn from recent progressive developments in a number of countries driven by a human rights perspective.

Plenary sessions and focus groups concentrated on:

• Why this topic is so important and relevant for people with intellectual disabilities
• What is the situation today across Europe and what are the challenges
• How supported decision-making could be implemented in our laws
• Who should do what to improve the situation of legal capacity of persons with intellectual disabilities