Title: The protection of personal freedom in non-voluntary internment in geriatric residences

For years, serious irregularities have been reported by the State Attorney General's Office, the Ombudsman, their regional counterparts and the Constitutional Court itself in the admission of people with disabilities and dependents in nursing homes, which are violating their personal freedom, their right to equality, to the free development of their personality and, in short, to freely forge their life destiny. The purpose of this paper is to study, in the light of the reform introduced by Law 8/2021, of June 2, the objective assumptions and constitutional and legal guarantees of non-voluntary placement of dependent elderly people in geriatric centers, which have specific characteristics due to the nature of their pathologies and a high social incidence caused by the phenomenon of pluripathological longevity. Free and voluntary admission to nursing homes does not pose legal problems when the physical deterioration or functional dependence of the elderly person does not entail a decrease in cognitive faculties, or when this can be compensated by the system of support provided for in Law 8/2021, so that the decision is taken freely by the person concerned, but in two cases in which the autonomy of the will of the person concerned cannot be guaranteed: (a) supervening dementia or supervening lack of capacity occurs when the resident, as a result of a chronic senile or degenerative disease, loses his intellectual and volitional faculties and is unable to decide on his continuity in the center; and (b) when there is an internment of a person who already lacks the legal capacity necessary to govern his own life and estate.