Att förverkliga rättigheter genom personlig assistans

Sammanfattning: This thesis examines in what way a legal and a personal right can be realized regarding Personal Assistance to people with severe impairments. Personal Assistance was introduced in 1994 as part of Act concerning Support and Service for Persons with Certain functional Impairments (abbreviated LSS after the Swedish title of the Act). The investigation is focused on how this can be done particularly by legislation but also in practice on the basis of the construction of the right Personal Assistance. The analysis is influenced by different perspectives and conceptions, e.g. principles deriving from state governed by law and welfare state. The central conceptions to understand the empirical material are judicial system, norm and right. The methodological design is primarily based on textual analysis of one Document study and one Court Case study. Data material from two empirical studies is used where primary material has been collected. The results from the different studies show that a social right as Personal Assistance is both shaped and changed by the context and the time it occurs in. The design is also affected to what actors that participate in the construction. A part of the right is designed as legal right and therefore strong. Different norms of the right appear on legal level and in practice. Essential political intentions within the disability field of the right have affected practice and remain as something original and unique. In this way the right can be considered as realized, even if in large extension the right appears to be stronger as an idea as it is in practice. Since the right Personal Assistance was introduced in 1994 it has been in change and reduced in relation to the original design. The present LSS-committee shall deliver their last report in August 2008 and they have announced that they will suggest a saving on SEK 3 milliards on the support of Personal Assistance. The question is how strong the right will be in practice if the savings are carried out to that extent.