Rita Aliukonienė, Neringa Aliukonienė, Vygintas Aliukonis
Abstract
Based on the laws of Lithuania and all democratic states, human life and health are considered as the most important values as well as a unique condition and basis of all other human values. Protection of human life and health may be ensured by establishing standards of various legal fields as well as determining criminal liability for encroachment on human life and health. The Criminal Code of the Republic of Lithuania (hereinafter referred to as the CC) determines liability for a simple or qualified homicide in Article 129, whereas grievous bodily injury is covered in Article 135. Moreover, the aforementioned criminal acts may be committed when the perpetrator is in the state of diminished responsibility (physiological affect), therefore the legislator considers such acts to be exclusive and establishes liability for homicide and grievous bodily injury in a highly agitated state in different regulations of the Code (Art. 130 and Art. 136 of the CC). The issues of qualification and dissociation of homicide and grievous bodily injury in the state of affect are rather complicated in terms of the practical aspect there of not only for lawyers but for forensic psychiatrists as well because usually the mental state of the subject at the time of the crime is examined much later, i.e. the experts must provide conclusions about the mental state of the subject in the past. Analysis of the material of 20 criminal cases done within the course of this research paper enables to draw a conclusion that there are only individual cases stating that the perpetrator committed a homicide and grievous bodily injury in a state caused by a physiological affect. The criminal acts under analysis are mostly committed by mentally sane individuals, whereas mental patients, i.e. insane people, get involved in them significantly less frequently.
Keyword(s): homicide; grievous bodily injury; illegal or highly offensive action of the victim; pathological and physiological affect; forensic psychiatric examination.
DOI: 10.5200/sm-hs.2016.008
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