STRØBYE AND ROSENLIND v. DENMARK JUDGMENT
(3) A guardianship order can be restricted to financial matters, including specific
assets or affairs. Such an order can also be restricted to personal matters, including
specific personal affairs.
(4) Unless otherwise specifically provided, the guardian shall act on behalf of the
relevant person in respect of affairs covered by the guardianship order.
(5) Persons subject to guardianship under this provision are legally competent,
unless deprived of their legal capacity under section 6.”
Accordingly, section 5 of the Guardianship Act allowed for individual
guardianship arrangements adapted to individual needs. Persons subject to
guardianship under section 5 of the Act could enter into legal transactions
on their own, and they had the right to vote in general elections
52. At the relevant time, section 6 of the Guardianship Act was worded
as follows:
Section 6
“(1) Persons subject to guardianship over their financial affairs under section 5 can
be deprived of their legal capacity, if necessary, to prevent them from exposing their
assets, income or other financial interests to the risk of a major loss, or to prevent
financial exploitation. The deprivation of a person’s legal capacity cannot be restricted
to particular assets or affairs.
(2) A person deprived of his or her legal capacity is legally incompetent and does
not have the right to enter into legal transactions or to manage his or her assets, unless
otherwise provided.
(3) Legal incapacitation orders must be registered (see section 48 of the Registration
of Property Act).”
53. Under section 8 of the Guardianship Act, a guardianship order must
be granted on the basis of the principle of implementing the least intrusive
measure. One implication is that a person cannot be deprived of his or her
legal capacity under section 6 if it is possible to safeguard his or her
interests to a sufficient extent through guardianship under section 5.
54. From the preparatory notes to the Act, it appeared that it was based
on Report No. 1247/1993 on Guardianship issued by the Committee of the
Ministry of Justice on the Act on Legal Competence
(Myndighedslovudvalget). The report read, in its relevant part, as follows:
“9.2.2. For the purpose of the Committee’s considerations of concepts and
terminology, it was particularly relevant to assess the wording of the Constitution. It is
irrelevant whether a person is only declared legally incompetent to manage his or her
financial affairs (see section 2 of the current Act on Legal Competence) or also
declared legally incompetent to manage his or her personal affairs, see section 46. A
declaration of legal incompetence relied upon as grounds for exclusion from the right
to vote in pursuance of section 29 of the Constitution is based on the assumption, as is
also the condition of having attained the age of majority, that a certain level of mental
skills is a prerequisite for suffrage. According to the preparatory notes, it must be
assumed that it is the restriction on a person’s right to manage his or her assets (when
declared legally incompetent) that gave rise to combining a declaration of legal
incompetence with disenfranchisement. It must also be taken into account that the
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