Craigie Jillian
Centre of Medical Law and Ethics, Dickson Poon School of Law, King's College London, Strand, London WC2R 2LS, United Kingdom.
Int J Law Psychiatry. 2015 May-Jun;40:6-14. doi: 10.1016/j.ijlp.2015.04.002. Epub 2015 May 18.
The United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) is being used to argue for wider recognition of the legal capacity of people with mental disabilities. This raises a question about the implications of the Convention for attributions of criminal responsibility. The present paper works towards an answer by analysing the relationship between legal capacity in relation to personal decisions and criminal acts. Its central argument is that because moral and political considerations play an essential role in setting the relevant standards, legal capacity in the context of personal decisions and criminal acts should not be thought of as two sides of the same coin. The implications of particular moral or political norms are likely to be different in these two legal contexts, and this may justify asymmetries in the relevant standards for legal capacity. However, the analysis highlights a fundamental question about how much weight moral or political considerations should be given in setting these standards, and this is used to frame a challenge to those calling for significantly wider recognition of the legal capacity of people with mental disabilities on the basis of the Convention.
《联合国残疾人权利公约》（CRPD）正被用于主张更广泛地承认精神残疾者的法律行为能力。这引发了一个关于该公约对刑事责任归属影响的问题。本文通过分析与个人决策和犯罪行为相关的法律行为能力之间的关系来寻求答案。其核心论点是，由于道德和政治考量在设定相关标准中起着至关重要的作用，因此在个人决策和犯罪行为背景下的法律行为能力不应被视为同一枚硬币的两面。特定道德或政治规范在这两种法律背景下的影响可能不同，这可能为法律行为能力相关标准中的不对称性提供正当理由。然而，该分析凸显了一个关于在设定这些标准时应给予道德或政治考量多大权重的根本问题，这被用来对那些基于该公约呼吁大幅更广泛地承认精神残疾者法律行为能力的人构成挑战。
