ABSTRACT
This chapter considers this challenge to the public/private divide in more depth, exposing the way the distinction is utilised in mental capacity law, and the effects of this, as well as tracing how it is entangled with the other mutually sustaining binaries in the legal framework that have been encountered across. The representation of the legal subject through case law provides one key element of the reasoning employed by the judiciary around the public/private divide. As well as the purported powerlessness of the court, it is striking that these judgments, bolstered by the public/private divide, serve to disempower the individual at the centre, and there is no readily apparent mechanism by which they can challenge this. At the same time as bolstering the public/private divide, this can also be seen as also maintaining particular configurations of institutional relations, further serving to entrench and naturalise power relations that have proven problematic for groups in society, including those with disabilities.
