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 Printable version |
The end of the legal withdrawal of a case due to psychiatric reasons and its effect on psychiatric medico-legal institutional aims in France |
l'Information Psychiatrique. Volume 85, Number 8, 759-68, octobre 2009, Soins et dangerosités
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 Résumé
Article gratuit
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Author(s) : P Rappard |
Summary : The main issues which characterize the links between psychiatry and justice in France, or even better of psychosis and law are dealt with relevance and pragmatism in the national bill about safety retention and the declaration of penal irresponsibility due to mental disorder, adopted by the National Assembly on January 10
th, 2008. The principle of irresponsibility due to mental disorder has, of course, been maintained (because in the law, it means the free will principal and is the basis of psychiatry) but the result is not the legal withdrawal of the case any more which kept the criminal or delinquent mentally ill person away from the court (which could be appropriate) but which, at the same time, kept the person away from justice (which was not necessarily suitable). Therefore, the penal code remains what it is, but it is the criminal procedure code which has been adapted in view of the setting-up of the dispositions concerning the safety measures. From now on, the psychiatrist will be able to treat the anti-social tendency without having to prevent the act and without having to keep the patients confined in a psychiatric institution after treatment. When scientific prediction of the second offence is lacking, the legal authority would then take charge of the situation of people who are legally irresponsible because of a mental disorder. As far as the incarceration while awaiting trial and the obligation of care for dangerous responsible offenders are concerned, the issue is more complicated. Because penal measures are not considered to be a sentence, it is added to it, after the penal measure has been totally completed, in order to prevent a second offence, and this would be for a relatively undetermined length of time. This is where the problem lies: indeed, this measure can appear like a totally undetermined sentence which does not specify the length of time. This system has never been accepted in France, although it is accepted in some Anglo-American countries. Here we are confronted with 2 positions in France: the one of social defence and the other of judicialization for admission under constraint for dangerous individuals in the psychiatric hospitals or in the socio-medical detention centres. |
Keywords : withdrawal of case, penal irresponsibility, safety measures, second offence, dangerousness, social defence |
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