The joint project “Legal and Social Study of Institutions Limiting or Destroying Legal Capacity” (VANITS) by Kornelia Krutulytė, a PhD student at the VU Law Faculty and Dr. Rasa Genienė, assistant at the Institute of Sociology and Social Work, Faculty of Philosophy of VU has won the competition of the Vilnius University Promotion Fund and has received funding.
The aim of this project is to conduct a study of the current system of restriction of legal capacity in Lithuania and to propose alternatives to the provision of legal capacity.
The idea of the project is based on the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which Lithuania ratified in 2010. Article 12 of the Convention, entitled “Equality against the law”, states that persons with disabilities shall in all cases be considered as subjects of the law and shall have legal capacity on an equal footing with other persons in all areas of life.
The legal capacity of people with disabilities is subject to limitations by the institutions of the justice system, while the social protection system is responsible for designing support measures. The project therefore assumes that the integrated functioning of the justice and social protection systems would address the issue of legal capacity of people with disabilities and will seek to explore ways and conditions for an effective cooperation between the systems.
This project will be carried out jointly by PhD student K. Krutulytė and Dr. Rasa Genienė, assistant at the Institute of Sociology and Social Work, Faculty of Philosophy, Vilnius University.