The Study On Compulsory Medical Treatment Procedure For Mentally Ill

In real life, it happens occasionally that patients with mental diseases commit violent behaviors which will seriously endanger social security and personal security. And mental patients always commit crimes which are brutal in method, without clear motivations and hard to prevent. So it is a very important measure to implement compulsory medical treatment to mental patients. This measure is closely related to social benefits. Compulsory medical treatment to mental patients refers to the judicial office should take compulsory medical treatment as a special proceeding to mental patients who don’t bear criminal responsibilities according to law, but have social dangers. The legislation for China’s mental disease compulsory medical treatment is stipulated in Term 1 of Article 18 in Penal Law that mental patients who cause harmful consequences due to unidentified or uncontrollable behaviors shall not bear criminal responsibilities after identified by legal procedures, but the family members or guardians shall be compelled to guard the patient strictly and seek medical treatment. The government will take compulsory medical treatment when necessary. Although there is clear stipulation in Penal Law and mental patients’ compulsory medical treatment measure has been practiced for many years in China’s judicial system, the mental patients’ compulsory medical treatment procedures has many deficiencies for a long time in Criminal Procedure Law.The author discovered that the substantial issues of mental patients’ compulsory medical treatment in various countries are stipulated by Penal Law in general, while procedure issues are usually stipulated by Criminal Procedure Law. For example, Germany Criminal Procedure Code stipulates “Security Measures Procedures” in “Special Procedures”. China has made some relevant stipulations on issues related to mental patients’ compulsory medical treatment before 2012. But in general, these stipulations are too rough, have no clear application conditions and lack of normalization which result in lacking of operability and need to depend on many policies for implementation. After 2012, the new Criminal Procedure Law stipulates “Compulsory Medical Treatment to Mental Patients Not Bearing Criminal Responsibilities According to Law” in a special chapter in “Special Procedures” which makes a series stipulations to conditions, hearing procedures, legal aids and legal supervisions of mental patients’ compulsory medical treatment and thus for the first time brings mental patients’ compulsory medical treatment into the scope of Criminal Procedure Law. However, the author considered that because this procedure is brought into Criminal Procedure Law for the first time, there are still some problems in legal text design. This paper is intended to take relevant legislative and judicial practice experiences abroad as references, combine China’s actual conditions, take legislative spirit as guidance to make conditions of mental patients’ compulsory medical treatment procedures more detailed, improve judicial identification procedures of mental diseases for compulsory medical treatment as well as the implementation and relief of mental patients’ compulsory medical treatment procedures hoping to contribute my effort to China’s legal construction.