Table of Contents:
- What is Mental illness?
- Do Mental disorders have liable for their criminal acts?
- When do Mental disorders still have criminal liability?
1. What is mental illness?
Mental illness is simply understood as a type of disease that occurs due to a disorder of brain activity, causing abnormal changes in the patient’s speech, manners, emotions, and behavior, etc. According to Decision 2999/QD-BYT promulgating the process of forensic psychiatric examination of 30 common mental diseases/disorders as follows:
1. Dementia in Pick’s disease (F02.0)
2. Unspecified dementia (F03)
3. Mental and behavioral disorders due to cannabis use (F12)
4. Mental and behavioral disorders due to cocaine use (F14)
5. Mental and behavioral disorders due to other stimulants including caffeine (F15)
6. Schizophrenia with catatonic form (F20.2)
7. Acute polymorphic psychotic disorder with symptoms of schizophrenia (F23.1)
8. Hypomania (F30.0)
9. Bipolar affective disorder, currently mixed episode (F31.6)
10. Bipolar affective disorder, currently in remission (F31.7)
11. Mild depressive episode (F32.0)
12. Moderate depressive episode (F32.1)
13. Recurrent depressive disorder, currently in remission (F33.4)
14. Cyclothymic disorder (F34.0)
15. Panic disorder (F41.0)
16. Generalized anxiety disorder (F41.1)
17. Brief depressive reaction (F43.20)
18. Persistent depressive reaction (F43.21)
19. Mixed anxiety-depressive reaction (F43.22)
20. Dissociative stupor (F44.2)
21. Dissociative movement disorders (F44.4)
22. Dissociative seizures (F44.5)
23. Mixed dissociative (conversion) disorders (F44.7)
24. Somatization disorder (F45.0)
25. Hypersexuality (F52.7)
26. Mild mental and behavioural disorders, associated with the puerperium, not elsewhere classified (F53.0)
27. Severe mental and behavioural disorders, associated with the puerperium, not elsewhere classified (F53.1)
28. Persistent personality change following traumatic experience (F62.0)
29. Persistent personality change following mental illness (F62.1)
30. Pedophilia (F65.4)
2. Do Mental disorders have liable for their criminal acts?
Article 21 of the 2015 Penal Code, amended and supplemented in 2017, stipulates Lack of criminal capacity exemption from criminal liability:
“A person who commits an act that is dangerous to society is suffering from a mental disease or another disease that causes him/her to lose his/her awareness or control of his/her behaviors is exempt from criminal responsibility.”
However, to determine the accuracy of whether the person who commits an act dangerous to society is actually suffering from a mental illness, it is possible to request a competent authority to solicit expert assessment due to to Clause 1, Article 206 of the Criminal Procedure Code 2015, which stipulates mental conditions of the accused person when doubts of their criminal capacity arise. Mental conditions of witness testifiers or crime victims shall be verified when there are doubts of their awareness and capacity of providing accurate statements on facts of a case.
After doing solicit expert assessment, person who committed the socially dangerous act while suffering from a mental illness, pursuant to Clause 1, Article 49 of the 2015 Penal Code, amended and supplemented in 2017, a person who commits an act dangerous to society while suffering from a disease specified in Article 21 hereof, the Procuracy or Court, according to the forensic examination conclusion or mental forensic examination, shall decide to send him/her to a specialized medical facility for mandatory treatment.
Otherwise, although not having criminal liability, mental disorders still have liability for compensation. According to Clause 3, Article 586 of the Civil Code 2015 , the compensating liability when legally incapacitated person causes damage will belong to the guardian of legally incapacitated person to relieves and compensate, depending on whether the object of the violation is property, health or human life.
3. When do Mental disorders still have criminal liability?
Analyzing Article 21 of the Penal Code 2015, amended and supplemented in 2017, not all cases of mental illness are exempt from criminal liability, but only those with mental disorders who commit socially dangerous acts while “suffering” from the disease are exempt from criminal liability. In condition of Clause 2, Article 49 of the 2015 Penal Code, amended and supplemented in 2017, if a person has criminal capacity when committing the crime but loses his/her awareness or control of his/her acts before conviction, according to the forensic examination conclusion or mental forensic examination, the Court may decide to send him/her to a specialized medical facility for mandatory treatment. After the disease is treated, that person might bear criminal responsibility.