Several recent cases have considered the question of whether a person has the right to refuse treatment for medical illness which results from mental illness. When the law finds, as it has, that the same individual has the right to refuse treatment for one condition but not for another this has led to a serious discussion of whether the distinction makes any sense. Under discussion is a standard of capacity for all health care decisions, relating to mental and physical illness. The potentially dangerous individual who is competent would be allowed to refuse treatment, and appropriate legal action would follow if the person was in fact violent. Psychiatrists are generally opposed to the change because it would potentially tie their hands in the treatment of some quite ill patients.
Attorneys argue for the change.
He spoke on syndrome evidence, arguing that battered women s syndrome was a simplistic concept and suggesting that the issue was one of diminished capacity. He suggested that the law of self-defense should be redefined to include a standard of reasonable fear that takes account of the overall context in which the crime occurs. Imminence should be redefined to include violence that is about to occur. Derrick Chiswick, a distinguished Scottish forensic psychiatrist gave an excellent presentation of the history of diminished responsibility a concept initiated by the Scots in an 1867 case, and developed further by the English. This is a legal concept referring to an abnormality of mind, which is not further defined.