Unfitness to Plead Consultation Responses - Law Commission ...

Provisional Proposal 2
Sense agrees with this approach.
Provisional Proposal 3
Sense agrees with this approach.
Provisional Proposal 4
Sense agrees with the approach put forward in the consultation paper. A
deafblind person *may have sufficient communication and access to information
ability to follow simple proceedings, for example for a crime where the act had
been caught on a CCTV camera and the main issue was of identification of the
accused. However if the proceedings were more complex and involved complex
language and evidence then it may be that the same individual would encounter
substantial problems in accessing the trial.
At Paragraph 4.15 the Government gives seven recommendations which it would
endorse. The third recommendation relates to the need for improved systems for
screening and assessing defendants needs. Sense agrees with this
recommendation and would like to specifically highlight the need for a specialist
assessment carried out by suitably qualified person to determine the needs of the
defendant. The uniqueness of deafblindness as a disability has been recognised
by the government in statutory guidance issued under Section 7 Local Authority
Social Services Act 1970. 5 The Guidance sets out the need for specialist
assessments carried out by a suitably qualified person. Sense highly
recommends that the same approach is taken in the context of assessing
defendants needs. 6
Provisional Proposal 5
Sense agrees that the availability of special measures which would aid the
decision-making capacity of the individual or the ability to access the court
proceedings should be considered when the court is assessing an individual’s
decision-making capacity and their fitness to plea or stand trial.
Sense firmly believes that in the interests of equality a deafblind person should
not be able to hide behind his or her disability. If the individual has the capacity to
access the trial proceedings then he or she should be considered fit to plead. If
adjustments are required to allow the deafblind person to be able to access the
trial then providing those adjustments are made to an adequate and appropriate
standard (and where applicable) by a person suitably qualified to make the
adjustments, then the deafblind person should be considered to be fit to plea and
stand trial.
5
Social care for deafblind children and adults LAC(DH)(2009)6
6
See below at page 10
8