Post-traumatic Stress Disorder and Hospitalisation Syndrome as Potential Aetiologies of Unfitness to Stand Trial: The Gbagbo Decision

In Prosecutor v Laurent Gbagbo, ICC Pre-Trial Chamber, 2 November 2012 it was decided that the accused former President of the Ivory Coast was fit to stand trial. Expert opinions from a general practitioner and a psychologist were not accepted and evidence from a psychiatrist was preferred. It was determined that the evidence that the accused suffered from “hospitalisation syndrome”, PTSD and depression did not satisfy the test for unfitness to stand trial. The carefully reasoned judgment of the Pre-Trial Chamber raises important issues about the relevance of conditions that fall short of psychosis in terms of their potential to render a person unfit for trial under international criminal law or, more generally, under criminal law. While on this occasion the somewhat novel, internally contradictory and inadequately based expert opinions did not satisfy the Pre-Trial Chamber in this regard, it remains still possible that unusual conditions or combinations of conditions falling short of psychosis could result in a person's inability to participate meaningfully in the trial process.