SIX MONTHS earlier than expected, the Minister for Justice is to bring a Bill to Cabinet today to reform laws on criminal insanity which have remained largely unchanged since 1843.
An independent mental care review body is to be set up under the legislation to review the detention of persons held by reason of insanity or mental disorder.
The Criminal Law (Insanity) Bill 1996 proposes to replace the present verdict of guilty but insane with a range of judicial options. Among these will be a verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity, which will provide for the subsequent treatment and detention, if necessary, of accused persons.
The Bill also provides for a new verdict of manslaughter with diminished responsibility. This would apply where persons were not legally insane but suffered from a mental disorder which substantially diminished their responsibility for their actions.
The law on whether or not a person is fit to appear before a court is also to be changed. It is understood that a person's fitness to plead is to be decided by a judge rather than by a jury.
The establishment of an independent mental care review body will remove decisions from the Minister's hands on the continued detention of persons found not guilty by reason of insanity. Up to now the Minister has relied on advisory committees to make recommendations in these cases.
Legislation to reform the law was initially prepared in the Department of Justice in 1991. This followed a Supreme Court ruling that the government, rather than the courts, should decide whether a person who had been found guilty but insane of murder was fit to be released.
The proposed reforms bring the law into line with modern psychiatric thinking. The verdict of guilty by reason of insanity is already applied in English courts.
Legislation expected to be repealed under Mrs Owen's new Bill includes the Criminal Lunatics Act 1800, the Trial of Lunatics Act 1883 and sections of the following the Lunacy (Ireland) Act 1821, Lunatic Asylums (Ireland) Act 1845, Lunatic Asylums (Ireland) Act 1875, Criminal Justice Act 1924 and the Juries Act 1976.
If, as expected, the Cabinet approves the general scheme of the Bill today, it will go to the Attorney General's office for drafting.
The new Bill has been prepared earlier than expected. In a Dail adjournment debate last April, Mrs Owen said the legislation would be introduced by early next year.
She said at the time that areas to be addressed would include fitness to plead, the definition of criminal insanity, the introduction of a new verdict of "guilty but with diminished responsibility" and the procedures governing the detention and release of persons found guilty but insane.
Making indirect reference to a number of controversial court cases, Mr Willie O'Dea of Fianna Fail warned the Dail that because of "recent events" no Irish jury would ever again bring in a verdict of guilty but insane if it turned out that a person who had committed a horrific crime or series of crimes was subsequently re-admitted to society.
Introduction of the legislation means that some of the recommendations in a report prepared nearly 20 years ago will at last be implemented. Mrs Owen promised the Dail that special account would be taken of the 1978 report of the interdepartmental committee on mentally ill and maladjusted persons, chaired by Mr Justice Henchy.