Understanding diminished responsibility in post 20th century Ireland

maithanfear

I'm having some difficulty understanding diminished responsibility. To what extent can someone claim this defence? The legislation is quite ambigous and it would seem as though someone could claim diminished responsibility even if they were depressed, but I find it hard to believe that a court would rule that a person was suffering from diminished responsibilty simply by suffering from depression.

6.— (1) Where a person is tried for murder and the jury or, as the case may be, the Special Criminal Court finds that the person—

(a) did the act alleged,

(b) was at the time suffering from a mental disorder, and

(c) the mental disorder was not such as to justify finding him or her not guilty by reason of insanity, but was such as to diminish substantially his or her responsibility for the act,

the jury or court, as the case may be, shall find the person not guilty of that offence but guilty of manslaughter on the ground of diminished responsibility.

(2) Subject to section 5 (4), where a person is tried for the offence specified in subsection (1), it shall be for the defence to establish that the person is, by virtue of this section, not liable to be convicted of that offence.

(3) A woman found guilty of infanticide may be dealt with in accordance with subsection (1).

Does this not leave it wide open to shrinks to decide whether someone was suffering fom an illness or not therefore robbing th court of it's functions?

Peregrinus

No. The medics give evidence as to whether a person was suffering from a "mental disorder" (paragraph (b) of the defence) and the court will largely accept that (assuming it is not contradicted by other evidence from a different medic).

But the question of whether the disorder "was such as to diminish substantially his or her responsibility" (paragraph (c)) is not a medical question, "responsiblity" being a legal, moral or philosophical concept rather than a medical one. So the medics can give evidence about, for example, the effect of the mental disorder on cognition, on inhibition, etc, but whether those effects result in a signficant diminution of responsibility is a matter for the court.

Slyderx1

its a matter of fact for the jury after being directed by the judge on the law save in the case of the Special Criminal Court of course