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Status:  The Law Commission have published an analysis of responses to the consultation paper and are taking this work forward.

When a person is facing prosecution in a criminal trial, he or she may be found “unfit to plead and to stand trial”. The legal test for determining fitness to plead has numerous faults.  It dates from 1836 when the science of psychiatry was in its infancy. The law developed in a piecemeal way and independently of developments under the European Convention on Human Rights on “effective participation” as part of the right to a fair trial.

Given the vulnerability of people with learning disabilities and of those with mental illness, modern criminal law should be informed by modern science, and in particular by modern psychology and psychiatric findings.

The legal test for fitness to plead needs to be reformed so that it is fair and suitable for the criminal justice system of the 21st century.

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