What would you think of if I asked you to think about the law? Most of us would think of the Parliament, police officers, trials, courthouses, judges, lawyers and legal textbooks. These objects and people feel far away from us.
Some researchers came up with a different way thinking about the law. They say that law does not happen only in legal places and is not only what lawyers do with it. They say our lives are full of law, even if we don’t think about it. Stopping at a red traffic light, shopping, using the internet, or deciding to get married are moments in our daily lives when we are influenced by law. But we also can influence law. We can even push the law to make our rights a reality. Thinking about law in this way makes it something much more relevant in our lives.
In the Everyday Decisions project, we find this kind of thinking about the law very useful. We want to understand how law works in the lives of people with learning disabilities. We want to find out how you make decisions and what you think about law. We also want to see how care workers use the law to support people with learning disabilities. In this way, we hope to find ways to support people with learning disabilities to make their own decisions and to exercise their rights fully.