Die Vormundschaft nach estnischem Recht

Abstract

The constitution of the Estonian Republic determines the basic elements of the status of people providing for general right to freedom and personality rights. The Civil Code regulates the concepts of full and limited legal capacity of natural persons. The capacity to contract presumes the natural ability to understand and control one’s own actions. Estonian law provides for limitations of the legal capacity, up to full incapacitation, for mentally disordered adults. A guardian must be appointed for such persons to represent them insofar as legal capacity is limited. The law provides for certain safeguards in order to protect such persons from excessive limitation; however, Estonian law still follows the “substituted judgement approach” rather than the “supported decision-making approach” solicitated in the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. In practice, the flexibility granted by legislation is not always used - e.g. authorities and courts often use full instead of partial incapacitation.