What Price Insanity?

Abstract

The insanity defence in Canada is defined by the use of Section 16 of the Criminal Code. Legal sanity is determined by the application of an outdated set of rules which require only that the accused be able to determine right from wrong in the particular circumstances that appear to have applied at the time of the alleged offence. The actual application of the defence suggests that its interpretation in practice is considerably affected by factors other than the mental state of the accused. The arbitrary and ill-understood nature of these interposed factors removes any certainty that justice, or the well-being of the accused, is to be found by use of the existing law. Psychiatry should not rest content that its understanding of the determinants of human behavior is in any way accurately represented by Canada's Criminal Code.