Seanad debates

Wednesday, 19 February 2003

Criminal Law (Insanity) Bill 2002: Second Stage.

 

The plea of diminished responsibility will bring a sort of graduated approach to the passing of a sentence. I am sure that will bring with it the need for precision in a judgment which can sometimes be difficult to ascertain and to articulate. Precision is not often a feature of judgments, although one can apply the norm, the precedent or otherwise in such cases. We have had much debate on that recently in that people want norms to be imposed. That is quite ridiculous because one submits oneself to a judge who is unique. The judge makes a decision based on his or her knowledge and on the evidence before them. One cannot have judges all over the land giving judgment by bobbing their heads like black babies on a box who bob when offerings are put into it. That defeats the whole purpose. One is not allowed to refer to black babies nowadays. We cannot have regularity of judgments, although people often look for that. The plea of diminished responsibility will require considerable intellectual ability on the part of all concerned in terms of a decision.

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