The legal frameworks for the interrogation of mentally ill suspects. The perspective of the European Court of Human Rights, the EU, Germany and the UK (PDF)

Master's Thesis from the year 2019 in the subject Law - Criminal process, Criminology, Law Enforcement, grade: 7,5, Maastricht University, language: English, abstract: The main objective of this thesis is to provide an elaborate analysis of the current situation regarding legal frameworks, when it comes to the interrogation of mentally ill suspects in the EU.

The thesis presents a qualitative research, which is predominantly based on the technique of desk research, resulting in an extended literature review. The significance of this thesis lays within an extensive observation from both psychological and judicial, as well as from an international and national point of view. Based on the application of named method and topics, the thesis eventually answers the central thesis question: "How are the problems that mentally ill suspects encounter within the context of interrogations during the criminal procedure legally regulated in various national (UK and Germany) and international (EU and ECHR) legal frameworks?"

The high prevalence of people with mental health conditions in the criminal justice system is a longstanding concern of various institutions and authorities. Reason for this is that mental illnesses can interfere inter alia with the demand characteristics of interrogations in the context of criminal proceedings, such as understanding the consequences of provided answers, and hence negatively influence their results.