Dunn Michael C, Clare Isabel C H, Holland Anthony J
Leg Stud (Soc Leg Scholars). 2008 Jun;28(2):234-253. doi: 10.1111/j.1748-121X.2008.00085.x.
Recent judgments in England and Wales have confirmed and extended the High Court's inherent jurisdiction to make declarations about interventions into the lives of 'vulnerable', rather than simply 'mentally incapacitated' adults. We argue that this shift is problematic because of the ways that the 'vulnerable adult' has been constructed in order to justify such interventions. The accounts of vulnerability drawn upon in the constructive process highlight the person's inherent characteristics and/or the circumstances within which that person might be denied the ability to make a free choice. Such an approach parallels the public policy protection of 'vulnerable adults' from abuse in care services and the statutory protection of 'vulnerable witnesses' in the criminal justice system, and is built on an external and objective assessment of being 'at risk', rather than an understanding of the subjective experience of being vulnerable. We argue that this imbalance might act to disempower the 'vulnerable adult' by reducing that person's life to a series of risk factors that fail, first, to place him/her at the heart of the decision to intervene, and, secondly, to engage adequately with the experiences through which that person ascribes meaning to his/her life.
英格兰和威尔士最近的判决确认并扩大了高等法院的固有管辖权，以便就对“弱势”而非仅仅“无行为能力”成年人生活的干预做出声明。我们认为，这种转变存在问题，因为“弱势成年人”的构建方式是为了证明此类干预的合理性。在构建过程中所采用的脆弱性描述突出了该人的固有特征和/或其可能被剥夺自由选择能力的环境。这种方法类似于公共政策对护理服务中“弱势成年人”免受虐待的保护以及刑事司法系统中对“弱势证人”的法定保护，并且基于对处于“风险”状态的外部客观评估，而非对处于弱势状态的主观体验的理解。我们认为，这种失衡可能会削弱“弱势成年人”的权力，因为它将该人的生活简化为一系列风险因素，首先，这些因素未能将他/她置于干预决定的核心位置，其次，也未能充分考虑该人赋予其生命意义的经历。
