MENTALLY DISORDERED OFFENDERS OF UNLAWFUL ACTS IN CRIMINAL LAW AND CASE LAW

This paper presents and analyses legal regulation of the position of mentally incapable perpetrators of unlawful acts from the perspective of criminal law and procedure and the provisions of the Law on Protection of Persons with Mental Disorders, as well as their application in case law, through analysis of 25 final verdicts against mentally incapable persons. The aim of the analysis is to detect good practice, but also questionable and unequal conducts of the courts, in order to improve quality of the decisions and the harmonization of case law. The analysis of the decision encompasses the use of legal terms, completeness of the verdicts, reasoning of the decisions to hold hearings in absence of the defendant, the form of the defendants’ statements, the decisions on costs of proceedings and particularly the quality of reasoning on the need of psychiatric treatment