| The judicial expertise of mental disorders in criminal affairs refers to activities where mental health problems involved in criminal proceedings are required to be submitted to professional appraisers for judgment,appraisal and evaluation and presenting expert opinions.It is of great significance to guarantee the rights of the criminal suspects and the defendants,to realize the procedural justice and to improve the efficiency of lawsuits.However,there are many shortcomings in the system of judicial expertise of mental disorders in criminal affairs in China,which need to be improved.This paper carries out studies on some of issues which are closely related to medicine in order to seek the balance between the functional configuration of Chinese medicine and law in the judicial expertise of mental disorders in criminal affairs.The social value judgment established by medical ethics has made medical circles more cautious about the word " psychosis "."Mental disorder" is similar to the meaning of "legal insanity",but it pays more respect for patients and can avoid preconceived situations.Forensic psychiatric expertise should be based on medical knowledge and common sense.Therefore,the term "judicial expertise of mental disorders" is used in this article in order to reflect the neutral values and positions.Due to the unique attribute of the judicial expertise of mental disorders,the appraisal may not be as accurate as the natural scientific standard regulates.The provisions on the contents and standards of the current legislation in China are not perfect.There are issues such as malfunctions of medicine and law,the imbalance of the allocation of the right to initiate the judicial expertise and the lack of compulsory appraisal procedures.The appraisal of the identification and control competency involves the knowledge related to law and medicine.The essential elements to assess the criminal responsibility include the condition of the appraised,the details of the case and evidence that can reflect whether the appraised can know the difference between right and wrong of his/her behavior.It is necessary to determine the judicial personnel as the subject of appraisal and to enrich the interdisciplinary communication points in the appraisal.The scope of the appraiser’s work is to explore whether the appraised has mental disorders and whether the morbid mental activities of him/her are related to committing a crime from a medical perspective.If the conditions permit,the provision of a digitized analysis proposal for the investigators is recommended.The analysis of the case shall be carried out by the judges.Then,based on the objective facts of the illness and the details of the case,the dual value in terms of morality and law may be used to determine the criminal responsibility of the appraised.The rule of the accused’s competency to stand trial shall be established,and regulations on the procedure of putting forward the defendant’s competency to stand the trial and the evaluation and determination of such competency and the way to evaluate such competence shall be made.The appraiser only needs to consider whether the mental state of the appraised will influence his legal psychological ability,whereas his legal mental ability defects due to factors such as cultural level and language barriers shall be judged by the judges.Effective prevention from and reduction in the occurrence of acts of violence of the patients with mental disorders shall be taken by reminding the medical staff and their families to take precautionary measures in advance and carry out timely elimination of risk factors according to the aggressive or violent acts of such patients observed from studies on the concerning factors of their dangerous tendency.Meanwhile,critical observation and early intervention shall be taken for critically-ill patients screened out through evaluation.The initiating links shall be improved on the basis of the existing system of initiating the appraisal to fully protect the right to participate of the defendant and refine factors that are required to be taken into account.The mandatory mechanism of the initiation and relief mechanism may be set up in some cases. |
