The legal position of the handicapped

Abstract

Everywhere the story has been much the same and the care of the handicapped has gone through similar stages.(i) In the first stage the handicapped have been feared and despised and either neglected altogether or provided only a meagre custodial care and families have felt isolated and outcast because of their defective children. Usually the mentally retarded are referred to facilities for the mentally ill - or they are cared for in huge mass institutions which have proved only to be nourishing grounds for fear and prejudice. In laws relating to special ","' services for handicapped persons there is a high degree of coercion with provisions stressing institutional - '"', containment or drastic restrictions of other rights solely on the basis of the handicap. Definitions are quite broad; evaluative procedures and criteria are haphazard. In the second stage parents have grouped together seeking and giving help and mutual assistance. They have awakened the conscience of the community to provide out of charity a concern for the helpless. The handicapped at this stage are seen as eternal children who never grow up. They are to be loved and pitied and cared for because they can never claim a place in the affairs of men and women. In this stage hospitals are improved and special schools established. Compulsory powers over individuals are confined to circumstances of compelling justification for State intervention and delimited by more procedural safeguards. But in the third stage, pity is replaced by respect, and the handicapped person is reclaimed into the family of man. The associations of parents now become societies reflecting the concern of the community to provide for the needs of the handicapped. The handicapped becomes citizen whose rights are acknowledged and respected. A network of services is developed at public expense and in the public interest to enable the handicapped to live fruitful lives in dignity and in peace. Compulsory powers are virtually eliminated, except in those rare instances where a person would be liable to be dealt with under Criminal Laws. For the more severely impaired, consellors, advocates or guardians are appointed to be spokesmen and mentors to handicapped persons. The guardian acts as his client's alter ego seeking treatment, training and residential care suited to his client's needs while defending the client's rights as if they were his own.