Major changes coming to Incompetent Persons Act : Whalen
Posted Mar 15, 2016 09:52:06 AM.
Last Updated Mar 15, 2016 11:14:05 AM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
HALIFAX – Nova Scotia’s Justice Minister has announced major changes to the Incompetent Persons Act, as a Kings County man will go ahead with a constitutional challenge of the law next month.
Under the current legislation, Landon Webb, 25, has been declared incompetent by the courts, as his parents have said he functions at the level of a 10 to 12-year-old.
Webb maintains he can live an independent life, holding down jobs in the past while trying to see his two kids.
He has run away from two provincial treatment facilities to try and gain his independence, prompting missing person reports from both the RCMP and his parents.
Justice Minister Diana Whalen announced on Tuesday that the government is now deciding whether to repeal the legislation outright, or re-write it.
Concerns were raised by legal experts that the current legislation, written in the 19th Century, doesn’t take into account the varying levels of mental capacity in its assessments of competency.
Whalen said it was an “all or nothing” situation, adding she has also instructed justice department staff to not oppose an upcoming constitutional challenge scheduled for April 29.
“We won’t stand in the way,” Whalen said. “We see no point in wasting time and energy, to contest something we’ve already looked at in our initial review and said ‘it needs to be modernized.'”
“We’re going to be modernizing it.”
Whalen said the new legislation is expected to be in place in its new form by May 2017.
