Curatorship and legal incapacity in Peru: protecting someone who can't decide for themselves

A profound shift: from legal incapacitation to supports

For decades, Peru’s Civil Code allowed a person with a mental or intellectual disability to be declared legally “incapacitated” (interdicto), which in practice stripped them of their capacity to act: they could no longer sign contracts, manage their own money, marry, or make decisions about their own life without going through a curator who acted “on their behalf.”

That model changed radically with Decreto Legislativo N° 1384 (2018), which aligned Peruvian law with the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. The core idea of the new system is that every person, whether or not they have a disability, retains their legal capacity, and what they may need is not someone to decide for them, but someone to support them so they can make and express their own decisions.

What is a “support person”?

A support person (apoyo) is one or more people who help someone understand information, communicate their will, and make decisions, without replacing them. This can be a family member, a friend, or any trusted person.

There are two ways to designate a support person:

• Voluntary designation: if the person can express their will, they choose who they want as their support person and for which acts, generally through a public deed before a notary.
• Judicial designation: when the person cannot communicate on their own who they want as a support person, a family member or another legitimate party can ask the Family Court to designate one, explaining the specific situation.

What are “safeguards”?

Safeguards (salvaguardias) are the control mechanisms that go along with every support arrangement, precisely to prevent abuse, conflicts of interest, or a support person acting as if they had unlimited power over the person they support. These typically include clear limits on which decisions the support covers, periodic review deadlines, and the possibility for the person or their family to request that the arrangement be modified or removed if something is not working well.

Did curatorship disappear?

Not entirely. What disappeared is legal incapacitation based on disability. Curatela still exists, but rewritten article 564 limits it to the persons in subsections 4 to 8 of article 44 of the Civil Code — cases such as prodigality, mismanagement, habitual drunkenness or substance dependency — none of which is disability. People in a coma who had not designated a support person beforehand (subsection 9 of article 44) do not go under curatela either: a judge can exceptionally designate supports for them. Because this is a technical point that varies by the specific circumstances, it is always worth checking the current state of the law or consulting a lawyer before assuming curatela does (or does not) apply to a particular case.

How this connects to other rights

A person receiving support also keeps other rights worth knowing about, such as access to priority service in government procedures and services, employment rights under the rules on disability and work, or a dependent’s right to child and family support where applicable.

What to do if you have questions

If a family member of yours needs support to make decisions, start by talking with them about what kind of help they actually need, and then assess whether a voluntary designation before a notary is possible or, if not, start the corresponding judicial process before the Family Court.