The Meaning of Legal (In)Capacity of Persons with Intellectual Disabilities Based on The Judicial Practices of Two Courts for Orphans and Successions of The Judicial District Of The Capital of The State of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
This research aims to understand how the meaning of (in)capability for persons with intellectual disability is constructed by Law, based on the legal capacity and its instrumental use in the legal proceeding of guardianship. Resort to the literature review and empirical research in documents, having as source legal proceedings of trusteeship brought between 1971 and 2015, under the jurisdiction of two Courts of Orphans and Successions from the City of Rio de Janeiro. The method used to analyze the collected data was qualitative-quantitative triangulation. Regarding judicial practices in the surveyed Courts, we could see that legal capacity had to be attested by an expert, on the basis of medical knowledge. Therefore, the intellectual disability has been perceived as an incapacitating factor in all matters, and the person with an intellectual disability considered as someone who needs to be protected throughout his whole life.