Your BIHR Guide to giving evidence to the House of Lords on the Mental Capacity Act

Have you got a story to tell about the Mental Capacity Act?  Perhaps you or a friend or relative has experience of capacity assessments and best interests decisions?  Perhaps you or a relative has experience of the deprivation of liberty safeguards, or have to administer them?  Perhaps your work means you have to use the Mental Capacity Act?  Maybe you have been involved in proceedings in the Court of Protection?  The House of Lords has set up a special Committee to consider the Mental Capacity Act 2005.  They want to hear what people with experience of the Act think about it.

This is a unique opportunity to tell Parliament about your views on the Mental Capacity Act, the deprivation of liberty safeguards and the Court of Protection.  The Committee have produced a call for evidence, but if answering that list of questions sounds a bit daunting, don't worry.  Those fabulous folk at the British Institute of Human Rights have produced a guide to the Committee.  The guide will tell you all about why the Committee was set up, and it will give you advice on how to give your views to the Committee.

If you want to talk about your experiences of the Court of Protection it is very important that you know that ordinarily you cannot publish information about the proceedings (for example, on Facebook or other websites, or in other media).  However, special rules apply for Parliamentary Committees so you can still write to them.

If you know somebody with a story to tell about the Mental Capacity Act, who might struggle to do so without help, think about how you can help them to make their voice heard.  This guide from the British Institute for Human Rights can help you to do that.