Spain has created new laws and innovative organisation to respect human rights for disabled people.
Author: Simon Duffy
There are exciting things going on in Spain and in the region of Catalonia. In 2019, the law was changed to ensure people with intellectual disabilities had the right to vote. In 2021, new legislation was introduced to reform the laws that had restricted people’s capacity to make their own decisions. In January 2024, the Spanish Government reformed the constitution of Spain to replace the term ‘handicapped’ with ‘persons with a disability.
All of these changes are rooted in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD), in particular Article 12 - Equal recognition before the law:
These legal changes were certainly inspired by the CRPD; but they were also the result of significant lobbying and campaigning by organisations such as Plena Inclusión and CERMI. Advocacy for disability rights in Spain seems to be very effective at the moment.
Putting these principles into practice often means replacing forms of substitute decision-making (which presume that people cannot make decisions) with forms of Supported Decision Making (SDM) which assume that everyone can make their own decisions, but that we each need the right support. These principles are now being implemented by local organisations across Spain.
Some of these organisations, like Som-Fundació de support a persones amb dicacitat (Som-Fundació) and Support Girona, play a very interesting role in supporting decisions and they seem highly innovative by global standards. These organisations were specifically designed to support people’s decision-making and protect their resources. In effect, they help people get their needs met by working with other people and organisations, but they are not service providers and they have no vested-interest in encouraging people to use institutional or other services. The purpose of their support is to support people to make their own decisions and protect their own interests and assets. These organisations already existed in Spain, but the recent legal changes in Spain have led to new possibilities and new forms of action by these guardianship agencies.
At the bottom of this page you can find a number of different resources in Spanish and English.
Below is a summary of an interesting paper that considers some of the practical, legal and philosophical challenges of making supported-decision-making a reality.
Support and Guidance in Decision-Making edited by Dincat
The paper is introduced by Josep Tresserras Basela, who sets the scene:
“The implementation of legislative changes that are the result the State Law 8/21 of 2nd June, and Decree Law 19/2021 of 31 August in Catalonia (pending the amendment of the Catalan Civil Code) has led to a qualitative leap in the in the exercise of the rights of people with intellectual disabilities. For the organisations that support people it has special importance, because it leaves behind the model of substitute-decision making and universalises a model of support where legal capacity is the only valid option—so that people can decide, with the necessary support, how they want their life to be, and so can have a good life and be happy, as each person understands happiness.”
Exploring the meaning of freedom
Joan Canimas Brugué explores the philosophical complexity of Freedom and notes that Freedom has 4 aspects:
Rightly, he stresses the social nature of freedom, both in the need for responsibilities “The weight of freedom” [Hans Jonas] and the importance of limits, including the need not to abandon people. An idea also explored in a Citizen Network paper The Relational Basis of Empowerment by Karl Nunkoosing and Mark Haydon-Laurelut.
Andrés Labella Iglesias explores the legal right to Liberty. In Spain the legal framework seeks to weave together Constitutional Law, International Law (including the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities) European Law and State Law. In Spain the need to adapt to the standards set by the UNCRPD has been the “driving force” behind the reforms of support systems and the associated laws at the state level. It is notable that other countries, like the UK and the USA, have been much less willing to examine their own laws by these international standards.
These legal structures aim to create a form of “regulation of the fundamental right of freedom that has a double dimension, a subjective one regarding the ability to choose and a social one regarding the ability to interact and move without barriers or limits.” [quote?]
Núria Ambròs Roig explores some of the practicalities of Supported Decision Making (SDM) as the tool by which freedom is made real for people who do need help with decisions. There are many things to consider but critically we must treat this as a fluid process of assistance, sensitive to each person’s individual context and dependent on the quality of the relationship between the person and the person who seeks to help.
Silvia Alba Ríos summarises an unpublished paper by Joan Canimas Brugué that explores the issues of control itself, identifying different kinds of control:
The article explores the fact that some risks of harm are justified:
"Basic harms and risks are those that are considered normal and reasonable to assume in the analysed activity, and for a population whose possibilities are similar to avoid, reduce, repair or eliminate harm in case it occurs and to face the consequences.”
[Canimas]
However it goes on to analyse in detail the conditions where some kind of intervention that restricts freedom is justified. This is very important for ensuring our relationship with others is rooted in real love and respect, not just an empty formalism. Freedom doesn’t mean we have the right to abandon people.
Personally I was very encouraged to see the level of thought that has gone into this guide and by the wave of reforms we are seeing in Catalonia and across Spain. My thanks to Josep Tresserras for sharing these resources. Below we’ve have shared PDFs in Spanish and in English. The translation into English was carried out using DeepL and there are some limitations with infographics and formatting, but, overall, I think the core of the document is very understandable and useful.
Read and download the resources in English and Spanish, links below.
The publisher is Citizen Network. Supported Decision Making in Spain © Simon Duffy 2025.
NB: See individual documents for publication dates and copyright information.
Deinstitutionalisation, intellectual disabilities, Person-Centred Planning, Self-Directed Support, Europe, Global, Spain, Paper
