Elderly
Law No. 121 of 2019, known as the “Bill of Rights and Public Policy of the Government in Favor of the Elderly,” as amended, defines “elderly” as a person who is 60 years of age or older, previously known as “senior citizens.”
Rights of the Elderly
What rights do the elderly have?
The elderly have the right to be guaranteed all rights, benefits, privileges, and responsibilities granted by the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico and the United States, as well as federal and state laws and regulations.
In summary, Law No. 121 of 2019 recognizes fundamental rights for elderly people in the areas of health, food, family, work, social assistance, participation, education, information, the establishment of care, residence in a residential or medical-hospital establishment, legal principles, and special legislation. The rights of the elderly are broken down belowby topic.
General
- To be listened to, attended to, and consulted on matters that affect them.
- To choose with whom and where they live.
- To receive physical and social protection against abuse, exploitation, and isolation.
- That their physical, psycho-emotional, and sexual integrity be respected.
- To enjoy a peaceful environment.
- To receive preferential, dignified, and appropriate treatment before any government body.
- To enjoy and have access to recreational, sports, and cultural services programs in the community.
- To have spaces free of architectural barriers for easy access and movement.
Health, food, and family
- To participate in making decisions about the treatment of their illnesses.
- To live in a family environment or to have contact with them despite living in separate places.
- To receive sustenance, if they have no means to support themselves.
- To receive quality comprehensive medical care through prevention, diagnosis, treatment, and rehabilitation actions.
Work
- To continue participating in the labor force without any restrictions other than those diagnosed by medical or legal authority.
- To access job opportunities in special areas where they can develop within the sources of work, with accessible schedules, in accordance with legal benefits and with decent salaries.
Social assistance
- To freely decide to enter a facility for prolonged care, home, or shelter.
- Be a beneficiary of social assistance and decent housing programs when they are at risk, vulnerable, homeless, unemployed, disabled or have lost their means of subsistence.
Participation
- To take advantage of their abilities, experience, and knowledge to participate in the civic, cultural, sporting, and recreational life of their community.
- To be part of the various citizen representation and consultation organizations.
Legal principles
- To enjoy fully their rights, with a gender perspective and without any discrimination or distinction.
- Decent and appropriate treatment in court proceedings.
- Free agency advice.
- Free legal representation, when necessary.
- To decide on the guardianship of their person and the disposal or use of their assets.
Education and information
- To have opportunities for education programs available.
- To receive guidance from public agencies and their services.
- To receive, from the corresponding public institutions, the necessary training in the use of new information and communication technologies.
Care facility
- The opportunity to participate in their treatment planning.
- To refuse any experimental treatment.
- Not to be transferred without their consent, unless notice is served thirty days prior that includes a transfer plan.
- Not to be physically or chemically restricted without a medical order, in writing, with an effective term not exceeding twenty-four hours.
- To manage their finances or receive a report from the persondelegated.
- To receive visits, keeping in touch with the people they want to, and to have privacy for visits with their spouse.
Residence in a residential or medical hospital establishment
- To use the procedural and substantive guarantees in any process of voluntary admissions to residential institutions or services.
- In the event of involuntary admission, they will have the right to:
- visit with the person directing the residential establishment to discuss the residence
- that the residence does not extend beyond the stipulated time
- to request and be present during medical and legal visits
- to contract legal representation services
- to have independent expert staff to evaluate their case
What are the responsibilities towards the elderly?
Below are some of the responsibilities that different entities or groups of people have according to Law No. 121 of 2019.
Family
- To provide support (everything essential such as sustenance, living space, clothing, and medical care).
- To know the rights of the elderly and prevent anyone or a family member from putting their person, property, and rights in jeopardy (for example, abandonment, financial exploitation, or abuse).
- To provide a decent room, preferably at their home or in assisted care facilities.
- To encourage their independence, respect their decisions, and maintain their privacy.
- To manage with public and private entities respect for their rights and quality of life.
- To contribute to them keeping themselves productive and socially integrated.
Anyone
- To report if they are aware or suspect that an elderly person is a victim of abuse, institutional abuse, neglect, and/or institutional neglect. This must be done through the Special Investigations Unit (SIU) of the Department of the Family, the Office of the Ombusdman for the Elderly People or the Police Department. The information and identity of the person who provided such information will be confidential.
Professionals and public or private officers, , who provide services to the elderly
- Inform the Department of the Family SIU, the Ombudsman, or the Police Department if, in their professional capacity and in the performance of their duties, they are aware or suspect that an elderly person is, has been, or is at risk of being a victim of abuse, institutional abuse, neglect, and/or physical, emotional, financial abuse, exploitation, or sexual abuse, among others, due to institutional neglect.
Department of the Family
- To intervene in all situations of abuse, institutional abuse, neglect, and/or institutional neglect referred to, and to demand responsibility from family members.
- To establish measures for the prevention, identification, investigation, supervision, and social treatment of any elderly person who is a victim of abuse, institutional abuse, neglect, and/or institutional neglect, and to resort to the courts.
- To coordinate efforts with the private and government sectors and civil society to protect the rights and needs of the elderly.
- To establish a direct help and emergency line for the elderly.
- To give priority to cases of elder abuse.
- To receive the complaints of abuse that government agencies and private organizations or entities may refer to them.
- To establish a consultation structure for for-profit, nonprofit, and faith-based organizations and private companies that provide services to the elderly.
Mental Health and Addiction Services Administration (ASSMCA)
- To offer and coordinate care, residential or outpatient treatment, comprehensive and efficient, to abused elderly people regarding mental health and/or addiction conditions.
- To provide expert testimony, certifications, or written reports in judicial proceedings, when required.
- To offer and coordinate mental health and/or addiction services for caregivers or people in charge of an elderly person who incur in abuse or neglect.
- To facilitate the investigation of referrals for abuse, institutional abuse, neglect and/or institutional neglect at facilities that provide mental health services.
- To develop collaborative agreements with government and private entities to provide mental health and/or addiction services to elderly people or responsible persons who have engaged in abuse.
Department of Health
- To identify and provide support to families at risk of being abused (in collaboration with the Ombudsman and the Department of the Family).
- To provide expert testimony, certifications, or written reports in judicial proceedings, when required.
- To facilitate the investigation of the aforementioned abuse, institutional abuse, neglect, and/or institutional neglect at facilities licensed by the Department of Health.
- To offer advice and consultancy on medical aspects of abuse to the Department of the Family.
- To offer priority medical care and evaluation to elderly people in the custody of the Department of the Family.
- To guarantee health services to the elderly who are under the protection of the Department of the Family, regardless of where they have been placed.
Department of Housing
- To provide immediate attention, as a protective measure, to requests where there is a situation of abuse and/or neglect of an elderly person in the custody of the Department of the Family and the person responsible or in charge of the elderly person can demonstrate compliance with the Service Plan.
- To include clauses in the contracts it provides for the Department of Housing to amend the rent contract when the abuser has it in their name, in order to make it possible for the elderly person to stay in their home.
- To ensure that the administrative agents of the housing facilities offer immediate attention to situations where there is abuse and/or neglect and comply with the obligations imposed on the Department of Housing.
- To identify temporary housing for emergency situations.
Other Executive Agencies - To give priority to the types of abuse, institutional abuse, neglect, and/or institutional neglect that are committed against an elderly person.
- To coordinate with each other, through agreements between agencies, the provision of services related to the identification, prevention, or treatment of elderly people who are the victims of abuse or neglect in any of its forms.
- To assist and collaborate with the personnel of the Department of the Family in any affirmative management aimed at protecting the rights and safety of the elderly.
- The Judicial Branch or the Courts
- To hear all criminal complaints for crimes against the elderly.
- To hear all petitions for protection orders and cases that are filed in favor of the elderly and to keep a record of the orders issued.
- To inform the Department of the Family, the elderly person, and/or the person in charge of them about the excarceration of a person convicted of crimes against the elderly.
What legal remedies are available to redress elder abuse or neglect?
Some legal remedies that are available are:
- protection orders
- support orders
- criminal action
Protection Order
What is a protection order?
It is an order from the court that includes certain measures to protect an elderly person from another person, if it is understood that there are sufficient reasons to believe that they have been the victim of cruel or negligent treatment that causes harm or exposes them to the risk of suffering injury to their health, well-being, or property. This may include: physical, emotional, psychological, or financial abuse, threats, fraud, exploitation, intimidation, among other crimes.
Who can request it?
Any elderly person who has been the victim of abuse, institutional abuse, neglect, and/or institutional neglect, may request it personally, or through their representative or legal guardian, a peace officer, or a public official. Anyone interested in the well-being of the elderly person can also request it. The person requesting the protection order and the person on whose behalf it is requested are referred to as the petitioner.
How is this remedy requested?
It is requested in a Municipal Court of the Court of First Instance or through the Virtual Municipal Court at the email presentaciones@poderjudicial.pr.
Pursuant to Law No. 121 of 2019, this request can be made in writing or orally. The following can be requested:
- in a new, separate case for the sole purpose of requesting the protection order
- as part of another case pending between the parties, such as, for example, a family relations case
- at the request of the Prosecutor’s Office in a criminal proceeding or as a condition of probation or conditional release
If you choose to file a new case, you can use the interactive form Request for a Protection Order for elderly people or, alternatively, the Request for a Protection Order for the Elderly Person (OAT 1082) and Personal Data for a Protection Order for the Elderly Person (OAT 1753) forms.
Once the request has been filed, the Court will summon the parties for a hearing within the next five days.
As a rule, a marshal or police officer will serve the summons on the parties. However, the court may order that the summons be served by any person over 18 years of age, at the request of the petitioner. The failure to appear after being duly summoned shall constitute contempt, which is a crime that punishes noncompliance with a court order.
Can the court issue a protection order ex parte (without summoning or hearing the party against whom the order is requested)?
Yes. The Court may issue an ex parte protection order if it determines one of the following:
- diligently efforts have been made to notify the party against whom the order is requested and they have not been successful
- there is a likelihood that giving prior notice to the party against whom the order is sought will cause the irreparable harm sought to be prevented
- when the petitioner demonstrates that there is a substantial probability of immediate risk of abuse or of being a victim of any crime
Protection orders issued ex parte will be provisional and must be immediately notified to the party against whom the order is requested (respondent). The respondent will have the opportunity to object at the hearing that the court will set out within five days of the ex parte order having been issued. During this hearing, the court may set aside the order, modify it, or extend it for the term it deems necessary.
What can be included in the protection order?
The Court may order the respondent (against whom the order was requested) to:
- abandon the residence that they share with the petitioner
- refrain from bothering, harassing, pursuing, intimidating, threatening
- refrain from approaching or going into any place the petitioner is located to prevent the respondent from disturbing,
- intimidating, threatening, disturbing the petitioner’s peace
- pay support, if applicable in accordance with the law
- prohibit the respondent from disposing of the petitioner’s assets in any form
- order any of the provisional measures regarding the possession and use of the residence of the parties and over personal property
- pay for damages caused by conduct that constitutes abuse and/or neglect (it may include expenses for: moving, for property repairs, legal, medical, psychiatric, psychological, counseling, guidance, lodging, shelter, technological assistance, and other similar expenses)
- order the person in charge or owner of a residential or hospital establishment, where the petitioner is located, to take the necessary measures so that the order or any part of it is not violated
- establish other prohibitions and orders necessary to comply with the purposes and public policy of the legislation in protection of the elderly.
How will the protection order be notified to the party against whom it was issued?
All protection orders shall be notified personally to the party against whom they were issued, either through a marshal, peace officer, or any person over 18 years of age who is not part of the case.
What happens if a person fails to comply with the protection order?
Once notified, if the person knowingly violates any provision of the protection order will incur a felony offense. If the person is accused and found guilty of this crime, they could be sentenced to two years in prison, a fine that shall not exceed $5,000, or both penalties. In addition, the court could sentence them to comply with the prison term for community services.
Requesting Support
What is a Support Petition?
When an elderly person cannot cover their living, housing, clothing, recreation, and medical assistance expenses, their relatives may be ordered to cover those expenses. People who may be required to do so include:
- spouse
- descendants (for example: son, daughter, grandchild)
- ascendants (for example: parent or grandparent)
- siblings
How is this remedy requested?
A request for support may be filed in a Superior Part of the Court of First Instance. A petition may can also be filed with the Child Support Administration (ASUME) under the PROSPERA Program. This program provides an administrative mediation procedure and may refer the matter to an assistant ombudsman for the elderly to file an action with the courts.
Who can apply for it?
The elderly person may file a petition with the court in their own, or through their legal representative or guardian.
In PROSPERA, an elderly person may request it by themselves through their legal representative, peace officer, public or private agency, guardian, public official, or any person interested in the support of said person.
Criminal Action
What is a criminal action?
It is to initiate a criminal proceeding against a person who is charged with having committed a crime. Crimes that can be committed against an elderly person include:
- noncompliance with the support obligation
- abandonment of the elderly
- neglect in the care of senior citizens
- abuse
- abuse through threats
- financial exploitation
- lien fraud
- violation of a protection order
How is it initiated?
To initiate the process, a complaint must be filed with the Puerto Rico Police. This can be done by any person with personal knowledge of the facts that constitute the crime to be presented in the complaint. After the Police carry out their investigation, it will be up to the Prosecution to decide whether or not to file a criminal case in the courts. If the proceeding is initiated, the Prosecution will be represented by prosecutor of the Department of Justice.