ABSTRACT
Act No. 18.600 (concerning established rules regarding mental deficiencies) was published in the Official Gazette on February 19, 1987, and was the first act, in addition to the Civil Code, that established some rules regarding legal capacity. This act was progressively amended since the year 2004. The Convention was previously enacted as Chilean Act by the National Congress on July 2, 2008. Chile has gradually implemented the Convention. A particular concern for the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (‘the Committee’) was that the Chilean Civil Code of 1857, which denies persons with disabilities the right to legal capacity, has continued being in force. According to its original text, since the year 1857, articles 1445, 1446 and 1447 of the Chilean Civil Code rule the legal capacity as the specific capacity of a person to be ‘able to act with full legal effect in the way of effecting some legal transaction’, in MacCormick words.
