유엔 장애인권리협약의 관점에서 본 한국 성년후견제도의 현재와 미래

Korean Adult Guardianship and Its Future Tasks: From the Perspective of UN Convention on the Rights of Persons With Disabilities

Since the new adult guardianship law came into force as from 1st July 2013, some of the most important changes are that volunteer citizens begin to serve as specific guardians for persons with impairment to decision making abilities, based on protecting public interests, and that contractual guardians, even though few, come to the guardianship service play ground. Especially with the implement of the new adult guardianship system, regard should be had to the basic principles that persons with impairment to decision making abilities have dignity as a person and that reasonable accommodation is to be provided for them so as to enjoy constitutional, civil and public rights and discharge their duties and responsibilities as a human being. In this regard, above all, every legal measure disqualifying their rights and powers under the name of protection should be stopped. Instead, it is urgently required that appropriate decision making supporters be provided as easily, simply, and efficiently as possible, and that supported decision making system be equipped so as for them to be integrated into the communities. Some solutions are as follows: firstly, alternatives to guardianship is to be preferred to guardianship. Preference of contractual guardianship over judicial guardianship is an application; secondly, social infrastructure and social environment where mentally and intellectually disabled persons live their life in the society are much more important than guardians and alternatives to guardianship are provided. As awareness of human rights becomes raised, so can the number of judicial guardianship users paradoxically increase. That being said, to keep the number of guardianship users to the level of 0.2% to 0.3% of the population can be desirable. In other words, more desirable is that most mentally and intellectually disabled persons resort to alternatives to guardianship. To reach such a target, it is necessary to rearrange the system of guardianship and alternatives to guardianship; one of such rearrangements is to establish a competent organization which will be in charge of whole system. Draft bills put forward since 17th to 18th period of parliament have contained many good seeds for such rearrangements, even tough insufficiently. The first anniversary of the new adult guardianship is the time to collect wisdom to improve such seeds and develop into a new system.