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International
It’s Britney *****! The Pop Princess, The Global Icon…The Prisoner Who Had No Access to Justice for 13 Years! By Luke Gibbons, LL.B (Dub.) (aur.num.), BCL (Oxon) (Dist.) (Hon. Sch.), PhD Candidate (Dub.) Imagine being 39 years old, living with no personal freedom, zero control over your everyday life, someone else making important decisions about your healthcare, your money, the amount of work you do, with no capacity” to hire your own lawyer and gain access to the courts, no access to justice! This is the life popstar Britney Spears has lived since 2008 when she was placed involuntarily under a court ordered ‘temporary’ conservatorship of both her estate and her person. The ‘temporary’ conservatorship lasted 13 years until November 12, 2021 when Superior Court Judge Brenda Penny finally terminated the egregious legal agreement. However, in this piece this author questions why this was allowed to happen in 21st century America - how was a global superstar capable of earning millions per annum deemed incapable of living her life? The grave answer is that the legal tool of a conservatorship, often appropriate in many circumstances of actual incapacity, was in this case abused by the conservators for financial gain. This resulted in Spears having no capacity to hire her own legal representation and no access to justice for 13 years. She was arguably the most visible prisoner in the entire world. A Conservatorship (a) What is it? As Aaron Larson outlines, under US law a conservatorship is the appointment of a guardian or a protector by a judge to manage the financial affairs and/or the daily life of another person due to old age, physical or mental limitations. For adults, the guardian is termed a conservator, and the person under the conservatorship is called a conservatee. Conservatorships can be “of the person,” where the conservator has control over the conservatee’s daily activities such as healthcare and living arrangements. Alternatively, the conservator may be “of the estate” where financial decisions are controlled. In Spears’ case, she was placed under a conservatorship of both her person and her estate. In practice, this meant that she was deemed incapable of making any decisions relating to her personal life and managing her own finances effectively. (b) Why Britney’s Conservatorship Never Made Sense Critically, as Spears’ attorney Matthew Rosengart outlines, in almost all cases a conservatee does not and cannot work, support themselves nor a family. Moreover, in every case a reason for instating the conservatorship must be given. Court documents revealed that one of the primary reasons given for Spears’ conservatorship was early onset dementia. However, the year before Spears’ conservatorship was instated she released the most critically-acclaimed record of her career, ‘Blackout.’ Only a year after the conservatorship started she released another album, ‘Circus’ and embarked on the Circus World Tour, the fifth highest grossing tour of 2009 grossing $131.8 million. This is some achievement for a person deemed incapable of deciding if she needed to visit the GP, what friends she is allowed to have or whether she can drive her own car. It is difficult to see how early onset dementia was deemed acceptable as a basis for the conservatorship when the Circus Tour required Britney to remember both detailed lyrics and intricate dance routines. Moreover, the gross earnings of the tour clearly demonstrate that Britney was a person quite capable of earning enough money to support herself and her family.
