The #FreeBritney social media campaign aiming to release pop superstar Britney Spears from her legal conservatorship appears to have inspired Republican Reps. Jim Jordan and Matt Gaetz to request a congressional hearing on the practice.
“In recent years, there has been growing public concern about the use of conservatorships to effectively deprive individuals of personal freedom at the behest of others through the manipulation of courts,” Gaetz and Jordan, ranking member on the committee, said in a letter to House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler.
“The most striking example” of individuals being exploited and stripped of rights, they said, “is perhaps the case of multi-platinum performing artist Britney Spears.”
Conservatorships give legal control of a person’s finances or heath decisions to another individual and are usually reserved for the elderly or those with severe disabilities.
JUDGE OVERRULES OBJECTIONS OF BRITNEY SPEARS’S FATHER TO CO-CONSERVATORSHIP ORDER
Spears entered into a court-ordered conservatorship in 2008 for reasons that have not been made public. In recent years, her situation has inspired an online and in-person campaign to release the pop star from the arrangement.
A recent New York Times documentary on HBO about Spears’s conservatorship and the #FreeBritney movement again brought her situation to the headlines.
— Rep. Matt Gaetz (@RepMattGaetz) March 9, 2021
“The facts and circumstances giving rise to this arrangement remain in dispute but involve questionable motives and legal tactics by her father and now-conservator, Jamie Spears,” the letter said. “In court appearances in August and November of 2020, Ms. Spears’ attorney represented to the court that Ms. Spears ‘strongly opposed’ having her father as a conservator, that she was afraid of her father, and that she would not again perform publicly so long as this arrangement persisted. Despite these pleas, Mr. Spears remains a conservator of her estate.”
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
“Ms. Spears is not alone. There are countless other Americans unjustly stripped of their freedoms by others with little recourse,” the letter said. “For example, Long Island resident Daniel Gross was forced against his will into a conservatorship after being hospitalized with cellulitis while visiting his daughter in Connecticut. In what the judge labeled as ‘a terrible miscarriage of Justice,’ Mr. Gross was locked in a Connecticut nursing home for 10 months despite his pleas for release.”
Another court hearing on Spears’s conservatorship is scheduled for March 17.
Gaetz tweeted following release of the letter on Tuesday: “Congress can #FreeBritney and @RepJerryNadler has the power to convene a needed hearing on conservatorship due process.”
“Given the constitutional freedoms at stake and opaqueness of these arrangements, it is incumbent upon our Committee to convene a hearing to examine whether Americans are trapped unjustly in conservatorships,” the letter said.
#NEWS: @Jim_Jordan and @RepMattGaetz demand @RepJerryNadler hold a hearing on court ordered conservatorships.
“The most striking example is perhaps the case of multi-platinum performing artist Britney Spears.” pic.twitter.com/tfE8KJAZ4s
— House Judiciary GOP (@JudiciaryGOP) March 9, 2021