MENTAL DISORDERS AND THE LAW

• Author: THAM CHEE HO
• Date: 01 December 1994
• Citation: (1994) 6 SAcLJ 437
• Published date: 01 December 1994

By Kok Lee Peng, Molly Cheang and Chee Kuan Tsee. 1994. xxi + 337 pp. Softcover

This book aims to fill the gap in local literature vis-a-vis a single volume treatment of both the medical/psychiatric and legal aspects of mental disorders. The authors have tried to design it firstly, as a practical manual for clinicians, lawyers and other interested lay persons. Secondly, the authors aimed to achieve a comprehensive yet not encyclopedic coverage of the topic. In the latter, the authors have succeeded admirably, given that the book is a slim volume of less than one inch. In the former, though, the book is rather less successful as a practical manual for legal practitioners.

First of all, the book must be welcomed as a brave attempt to bring together, the psychiatric and the legal aspects of mental disorders in the Singaporean and Malaysian contexts. The two world views are formulated on different bases and yet, they interact all too frequently. Therefore, any attempt to harmonize, unify and explain the concepts and terminology used by clinicians and lawyers is assured of a warm welcome.

However, despite the authors’ avowed intentions, the book is not a practical manual. It is not a practitioner’s text. Rather, it takes the form of a long essay that begins with a general overview of the relationship between mental disorders and the law, and ends with particular instances where the interface is most pressing. As a result, it is not an easy book to dip into. The practitioner will not find a convenient A-Z of what constitutes mental disorder and what does not, for various legal contexts. What he will find though is a clear and fairly concise comparison of how the law views mental disorders, and how the medical-psychiatric community views them. It would, perhaps, have been more appropriate to design the book more specifically for a particular audience and not try to be all things to everyone.

The book is divided into 5 parts:

Part 1 : Mental Disorders and Mental Health Laws;

Part 2 : Criminal Liability and Mental Disorders;

Part 3 : Civil Liability and Mental Disorders;

Part 4 : Mental Capacity; and

Part 5 : Overview — Issues and Recommendations.

Of greatest immediate interest to the legal mind is part 2.

In part 2, the authors have dealt with the issues of an accused’s fitness to stand trial and insanity as a defence/mitigating factor. They have gone into the arcana of the M’Naghten Rules, the niceties of insanity as a criminal defence...