What is care law?
Care instead of incapacitation
or curatorship
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The Care Law of the 1992 in
the civil code (BGB) replaces incapacitation. Until this day incapacitated
people lost their legal capacity and had to be represented by a guardian.
A partial incapacitation for specific areas did not exist. In addition
there was the possibility to give frail individuals a guardian on hand.
The legal capacity of the person were not touched by this action.
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The introduction of care enabled
the government to provide individuals were unable to manage their lives
due to psychological or physical deficit, a caretaker on hand just for
the areas in which the deficit exist. The caretaker represents the person
legally but this does not influence the legal capability of the individual.
He/she still has voting rights unless the care covers all areas.
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In the sense of the civil code
care does only refer to the legal not the medical care. Medical care is
generally the responsibility of relatives, social services etc.
So called 'old-cases' -
incapacitations or curatorships ordered before 31.12.1991 have been automatically
transferred into care-cases.