Legal assessment of responsibility while outpatient forensic medicine examination of intellectually disabled people

Abstract

While legal capacity emerges at the moment of a person birth and he as a natural person and legal entity possesses it throughout all his life, capability is an institution with much more nuanced nature. Not all natural persons are endowed with capability, what is more a person may lack or be deprived of capability. However, it should be stressed that people with limited capability continue to live in society, to participate in legal proceedings when it is possible, as well as to commit crimes, that is their legal status differs from actual. Evaluation of acts competence committed by persons with limited capability plays an important role both in civil and criminal proceedings. In civil proceedings the issue as to transaction legal effect has to be resolved, in criminal proceedings the issues as to a person’s responsibility committed a crime and, accordingly, as to his penalty have to be addressed. The article is devoted to the role of outpatient forensic medicine examination while assessing the acts committed by persons with limited capability and in a state of insanity.