Semantics of “the Mentally-disordered Person” in the Jurisprudence of Shiite and Sunni and His Liability in the Penal Code

Explanation of the meaning of mental disorder and the mental disordered person as a widely used word and a jurisprudential term and examining the criterion of the distinction of this concept in order to identify its examples is a necessary task selected as the purpose of this paper. Examining the literal and terminological definitions, evaluation of the existing narrations and analyzing the jurists’ opinions when they considered these narrations and discovering the relationship between mental disorder and insanity form the main topics of this study. Section of the concept of as the only standard of non-application of penal punishment in the Penal Code, doubles the necessity of semantics of mental disorder as the counterpart of insanity in jurisprudence. The outcome of this research is achieving the definition of mentally disordered person under the general title of “intellectual deficiency” whose relationship to insanity in the jurisprudential terminological meaning (any internal problem which causes disturbance (disappearance or deficiency) of intellectual abilities or cognitive power concerning the committed act) is generality and peculiarity in some respect; therefore, a group of mental disorders under the title of mentally disordered are excluded from the scope of duty and execution of punishment according to the criterion specified by the lawgiver, the same as insanity.