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Background material by Professor Omar Hasan Kasule Sr. for Year 3 Semester 1 Med PPSD session on Monday 3rd November 2008
CONDITIONS OF AHLIYYAT:
A legally competent person makes decisions and takes actions on his person and property and is responsible his actions of commission or omission. Actions cannot be valid without legal competence. The defining conditions of legal competence are intellect, 'aql; puberty, buloogh; knowledge, 'ilm; and civil liberty or freedom. The main condition is that of intellect. All the others depend on and support it.. No human action can be carried out well and correctly without using human intellect correctly.
RIGHTS AND OBLIGATIONS
The fundamental rights represented by the five Purposes of the Law, maqasid al shari'at, cannot be denied on the basis of gender, age, sanity, disease, or legal incompetence. Their exercise is regulated by Law in cases of legal incompetence. Each of the 5 fundamental purposes has associated rights and obligations. The obligations of the individuals vary and depend to a large extent on the legal competence. The different rights and obligations of males and females are not related to competence but to different roles in society. Legal competence is of two types: competence with regard to acquisition of rights and competence with regard to execution of obligations. Both types can be full or deficient.
PRIVILEDGES OF THE LEGALLY COMPETENT
The legally competent person has full rights regarding his person and his wealth. A legally competent adult must be able to fulfill commitments and obligations. He also acquires rights as a result of commitments and promises made to him. A legally competent adult is responsible for all his acts of commission or omission. He has obligations under the law that he has to fulfill. The obligations however vary. The law considers the age of 7 years as the age of discrimination. Between the age of 7 and puberty and depending on the speed of development, a child may have intellectual competence to make correct decisions about some matters but no actions can be valid unless approved by the legal guardian.
RESTRICTIONS ON THE LEGALLY INCOMPETENT
Impediments that exempt an adult from performance of obligatory duties may be voluntary or involuntary. The voluntary impediments to legal competence are also referred to as acquired are ignorance, intoxication, and jest. Involuntary impediments to legal competence are insanity, mental retardation, loss of consciousness, infancy and childhood, terminal illness, forgetting, absence of mind, sleep, menstruation, errors, and coercion.
THE CONCEPT OF WILAYAT
Legal guardianship, wilayat, is legal authority given to a guardian, wali, to make and carry out decisions regarding the person or wealth of a legally incompetent person. The decisions of a guardian are binding. The guardian is usually a member of the family.