Submission of the New Zealand Human Rights Commission to the 18 th session of the Human Rights Council; New Zealand’s Second Universal Periodic Review. exercising legal capacity S 8 Primary objectives of the court – least restrictive intervention S 12(2) High jurisdictional threshold before a welfare guardianship order can be considered 12.4 Respect will and preferences of the person S 12(7) Court to ascertain the wishes of the subject person when deciding welfare guardianship; S 18(4)(c) Requirement to consult with subject person 12.4 Free of conflict of interest and undue influence S 12(5)(c) Requirement that there should be no conflict of interest when appointment made 12.4 Safeguards proportional and tailored to individual’s needs S 9(2) Need to consider type of order given objectives in S 8 – including ensuring the least restrictive option is adopted S 10 – provides a variety of orders that can be tailored to meet the individual’s needs 12.4 Subject to regular review S 10 (3) Review of personal orders S 12(8) Welfare guardianship order to be reviewed every 3 years 12.5 Right to control finances & property Part 5 – s 28. In making property orders primary objectives are to make the least restrictive intervention in the person’s affairs & encourage them to exercise and develop the competence to manage their own property 44. While the terms of the PPPR Act are arguably consistent with the obligations under the Disability Convention, it does include broad discretionary powers which allow the Family Court to empower a Welfare Guardian with similarly broad discretions over a disabled person. The breadth of these discretions is balanced in the Act by the front-end safeguard of, first, a presumption of competence and, second, the theoretically high jurisdictional threshold of total incapacity. At the back-end are the safeguards of regular review and a requirement of proportionality. Within those parameters, the PPPR Act authorises a welfare guardian’s decisions to be substituted for those of the person found to be lacking capacity. 45. The Commission believes that these wide discretionary powers have the potential to be applied inconsistently with the Convention if the Courts do not properly engage with New Zealand’s obligations under the CRPD when interpreting the PPPR Act and the 11