Barely closed in Parliament, the battle around the question of criminal irresponsibility rekindled on the occasion of the publication, on April 26, of a decree implementing the law of January 24. In fact, this decree seems to take the opposite view to what the Minister of Justice, Eric-Dupond-Moretti, and the majority had committed to during the parliamentary debate in the second half of 2021.
One of the objectives of the law relating to criminal responsibility and internal security was to respond to the incomprehension created by the case of Sarah Halimi, whose murderer was deemed not criminally responsible. The Court of Cassation had noted that the law did not make it possible to distinguish the reasons having caused the temporary abolition of his discernment. The legislator has therefore created an offense allowing a person to be judged, not for his crime for which irresponsibility would be retained, but for the fact of having consumed a « substance psychoactive » aware that this could make him lose his connection with reality and commit a crime.
This offense is intended to cover the very rare cases in which drug or excessive alcohol consumption would have caused a temporary abolition of discernment. There was no question of including the case of a patient suffering from mental disorders who would have stopped his treatment. “The voluntary taking of psychotropic drugs should not be confused with the omission of care”had thus justified Mr. Dupond-Moretti before the law commission of the National Assembly.
“General Bronca”
So why is it specified in the Official newspaper of April 26 that the provisions of the new article 706-120 of the code of criminal procedure resulting from the law of January 24 apply “when the mental disorder does not result from voluntary intoxication of the person constituting these new offenses, but results, for example, from the cessation by this person of medical treatment” ? This sentence does not appear in the decree itself, signed by the minister, but in the “notice” introducing it.
A real red rag that has made all psychiatric organizations jump. “Discontinuation of treatment, therapeutic non-compliance or partial adherence to a prescription are clinical signs of most severe mental illnesses (psychotic disorders, bipolar disorders in particular)”, recall the forensic psychiatry section of the French Association of Biological Psychiatry and Neuropsychopharmacology, the National Company of Psychiatric Experts near the Courts of Appeal (CNEPCA) and the National Association of Forensic Psychiatrists in a joint press release published on April 28 . These organizations unanimously denounce a decree which “thus makes the patient guilty of his symptoms”.
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