ABSTRACT
Article 12 equal recognition before the law is primarily referred to as 'legal capacity'. The right to legal capacity is, on that account, a prerequisite to effectively access the justice system. Since persons with physical as well as psychosocial, intellectual, or any other form of impairment possess the legal personality required in the exercise of their legal capacity, they have the right and the legitimate expectation to be recognised as persons before the law with equal standing in courts and tribunals. In fact, as the jurisprudence illustrates, there have been attempts by States Parties to limit those rights which are deeply entrenched in Articles 12 and 13 and they have not fully appreciated that equal recognition before the law is a threshold right on which other rights are intertwined and interdependent. Their acts and omissions have led to serious miscarriage of justice. The rights of persons with disabilities to procedural accommodation and reasonable accommodation are fundamentally different.
