The issue of when and how disabled people can be lawfully deprived of their liberty is a major contemporary challenge for mental capacity law. People who lack capacity to consent to treatment that deprives them of their liberty must have access to safeguards to protect their rights under Article 5 ECHR. The current Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards are widely considered to be unfit for purpose, and a replacement scheme, the ‘Liberty Protection Safeguards’ (LPS) were proposed by the Law Commission of England and Wales in 2017. These safeguards were legislated for in 2018/19 in the Mental Capacity (Amendment) Act and are expected to be implemented in 2022. At the time the reforms were being debated in Parliament, multiple stakeholders expressed serious reservations about the proposals, some going so far as to claim that they are not ‘good law’. In this paper, I evaluate to what extent the LPS is (or has the potential to be) ‘good law’, drawing on two contrasting conceptual frameworks to guide that analysis: Bingham’s (2007) sub-principles of the rule of law; and the capabilities approach developed by Sen and Nussbaum (among others). I argue that despite the technical problems with the legislation that caused such concern during its passage through parliament, if the implementation process is grounded in a strong social justice conceptual frame, the LPS has the potential to be a positive legal reform.

中文翻译：

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捍卫自由？自由保​​护保障、社会正义和法治

何时以及如何合法剥夺残疾人自由的问题是当代心智能力法面临的重大挑战。没有能力同意剥夺他们自由的治疗的人必须获得保障，以保护他们根据《欧洲人权公约》第 5 条享有的权利。目前的剥夺自由保障措施被广泛认为不适合目的，英格兰和威尔士法律委员会于 2017 年提出了一项替代方案，即“自由保护保障措施”（LPS）。这些保障措施于 2018 年立法/ 《心智能力（修正案）法》第 19 条，预计将于 2022 年实施。在议会辩论改革时，多个利益相关者对这些提案表示严重保留，一些人甚至声称它们不是“好法”。在本文中，我评估了 LPS 在多大程度上是（或有可能成为）“好法律”，并借鉴了两个截然不同的概念框架来指导该分析： Bingham (2007) 的法治子原则；以及 Sen 和 Nussbaum（以及其他人）开发的能力方法。我认为，尽管立法在通过议会期间引起了如此关注的技术问题，但如果实施过程建立在强大的社会正义概念框架之上，LPS 有可能成为一项积极的法律改革。