Report on insanity and diminished responsibility.

Scottish Executive papers 2004 92

Format:

Corporate Author:

Great Britain Scottish Law Commission

Author:

Eassie Ronald David Mackay Lord chairman

Publisher:

TSO (The Stationery Office)

The purpose of this report is to: consider the tests and procedural issues in establishing insanity and the plea of diminished responsibility; make recommendations for reform; consider any changes that should be made in the powers of the court. The main recommendations are: the common law defence should be replaced by a statutory defence that the accused lacked criminal responsibility because of mental disorder; diminished responsibility would be a plea that only applied to murder and would apply when a persons control was substantially impaired by reason of mental abnormality; there should be a statutory plea called unfitness for trial, the test of which would be a non-exhaustive list of skill which would indicate a lack of capacity; the mental disorder of the accused would have to be proved on the balance of probabilities.