The expected law has arrived: let us apply it well

The Parliament has just approved Law 13/2026, amending the Civil Code of Catalonia regarding support for the exercise of legal capacity for individuals. It has done so with a very broad consensus. This law culminates a long process of adapting Catalan civil law to the principles of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (2006) and has been presented as one of the most important social transformations of recent years. It is easy, therefore, to get carried away by optimism. But major reforms are not measured by what they promise, but by what they manage to transform.Historically, the law responded to the difficulties in knowing or respecting the will of the person with a disability through instruments of representation and protection. These instruments attempted to facilitate the management of daily life situations that involve decision-making. However, it is also true that they often led to overly restrictive practices, and many people were relegated to a passive position in the management of their lives.In recent years, however, there has been a growing trend to identify autonomy with the absence of any form of representation, as if respecting the person necessarily required dispensing with any action on their behalf. However, this way of understanding autonomy is inconsistent with the Convention.The autonomy that inspires the Convention and the new law is essentially relational: it develops from the interaction between the person and their environment. We as individuals exercise our autonomy also when we grant powers of attorney, designate trusted persons, or make decisions intended to produce effects in the future. One of the most valuable contributions of the new law is, precisely, the commitment to voluntary support instruments, such as preventive supports, and to forms of assistance established via notary, which allow for addressing or planning situations of vulnerability and anticipating who will have to provide support and with what criteria.However, the success of the reform will not depend solely on the legal design. It will depend above all on its implementation. Precisely this year we have completed an inclusive study, developed in collaboration with people with disabilities, on the perception that people receiving support have regarding the support they actually receive. One of the first findings is as simple as it is disturbing: for many of these people, the legislative change initiated with the abolition of judicial incapacitation in 2021 has been practically imperceptible.

The participating individuals, many of whom come from the old guardianship system, do not perceive substantial changes in their daily experience. In some cases, the judicial review procedures for the old measures have been more formal than real in nature. The language has changed, but often the powers attributed to those who provide support continue to closely resemble those that already existed before the reform.The research shows a particularly significant piece of data. The people interviewed are not demanding the elimination of support. What they are demanding is greater participation. They want to understand why they cannot access certain resources, know how much money they have available, or what the reasons are for certain limitations that affect their daily lives.This is probably where the true challenge of the new legislation lies. It does not consist of replacing some legal figures with others, but of modifying the way in which people and institutions understand the exercise of support. Even when representative powers are attributed, these should not be oriented towards systematically substituting the person, but towards listening to them and promoting their participation through the necessary information and dialogue, in order to jointly build alternatives. The people who exercise support functions continue, likewise, to assume important responsibilities. They must accompany, guide, and prevent situations of helplessness. Respect for dignity does not require inhibiting oneself in the face of risks, but rather facing them with the person and not apart from them.The path that has led to this law may have been too long. But it will have been worth it if all the actors in the system, and especially the people who perform support functions, assume the consequences of the new model. Although many judicial resolutions still continue to reproduce restrictive inertia today, we have a complete, coherent, and flexible legal framework that makes it mandatory to prioritize support for decision-making and to sideline the widespread practice of substituting the person. The law is already here. Now it remains to be demonstrated that the change in the way of accompanying, listening to, and deciding with the people who need support will also be here.