This consultation paper considers how the law should regulate deprivations of liberty involving people who lack capacity to consent to their care and treatment arrangements. Article 5 of the European Convention on Human Rights guarantees the right to personal liberty and provides that no-one should be deprived of their liberty in an arbitrary fashion. Any deprivation of liberty will also entail by its nature a limitation of article 8 rights to private and family life. A person who is deprived of liberty continues to enjoy all the fundamental rights and freedoms guaranteed under the Convention save for the right to liberty and moreover, when a person’s personal autonomy is already restricted, greater scrutiny be given to measures which remove the little personal autonomy that is left . The project relates to mental capacity law in England and Wales. Deprivation of liberty safeguards ( DoLS ) were introduced by amendments to the Mental Capacity Act 2005 by the Mental Health Act 2007 but have been subject to considerable criticism ever since their introduction. This paper proposes, and puts forward for consultation, that the Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards should be replaced by a new system called protective care .