Lunacy administration in Cape Colony / by T. Duncan Greenlees.

  • Greenlees, T. Duncan.
Date:
1910
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Lunacy administration in Cape Colony / by T. Duncan Greenlees. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    disposal of his property; or he may declare null and void the existing certificates, and order the lunatic to be re-certified. Further, under Section 17, any person detained under the provisions of this Act may apply to the Court for an inquiry into the cause and grounds of his detention, and the official curator ad litem is compelled to undertake the duty of sub¬ mitting such application to the Court, gratuitously in the case of paupers. Section 1 8 provides for the issue of a warrant of transfer by the Colonial Secretary of any lunatic committed by a summary reception order of a magistrate or by an order of a judge from an asylum, hospital, or gaol to another “ safe place of confine¬ ment.” Part II. Part II of the Act provides for the disposal of Governor’s pleasure and criminal lunatics. Governor’s pleasure cases are those criminals found insane prior to arraignment, and these cases may be detained in custody during the pleasure of the Governor of the Colony. At the trial, in certain cases, the magistrate or judge, as the case may be, may abandon the criminal charge, and then the lunatic may be dealt with under Part I of the Act as “ an ordinary case ” ; and when the charge is a trivial one this procedure is usually carried out. When a prisoner becomes insane he has to be “ certified ” by two medical men, and thereafter he is dealt with as a criminal lunatic, and detained either in the only criminal asylum in the Colony, Robben Island, or failing room there, in the prison. Should such a person recover his reason, formerly he was sent back to the prison to complete his sentence, but now the time of his detention counts in the period of his punishment ; should he not be fit for discharge at the termina¬ tion of his sentence he may be discharged pro forma as a criminal, and thereafter be considered an ordinary lunatic as if admitted under Part I of the Act. The Governor of the Colony reserves to himself the right to discharge, conditionally or unconditionally, any Governor’s pleasure or criminal lunatic ; such power, it need hardly be said, is never used unless on the advice of his Ministers.