Alex RKThe final report of the Judging Values and Participation in Mental Capacity Law project has now been published. Led by Dr Camillia Kong, and in a spirit of critical friendship towards the Mental Capacity Act 2005 and the Court of Protection, the project (to which I was a consultant) embarked on an ambitious programme of research about the role of values and participation amongst legal professionals. Funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council from 2018 to 2022, the project worked in partnership with legal practitioners, retired judges, and advocates to provide a research base for generating practice-relevant tools to help legal professionals negotiate difficult values conflicts in the CoP as well as instilling the importance of P’s effective participation in legal proceedings.
Core areas of concern for the Judging Values project were:
1. the values embedded within the MCA’s legislative framing;
2. the values that motivate and guide legal professionals’ day-to-day practice and decision-making;
3. the justification and mechanisms for P’s participation in legal proceedings; and
4. the values-based grounding for improved P-centric practices and decisions under the MCA.
Watch this space for a shed chat with Camillia and Professor Penny Cooper, one of the other team members, coming soon.
