La inimputabilidad por trastorno mental. Un estudio de su determinación a partir de la racionalidad comunicativa y la teoría de sistemas

This work examines mental disorder as a circumstance that excludes from criminal responsibility, seeking to explain why it is so difficult to establish unimputability due to mental disorder, who is responsible for making this decision, and how the principle in dubio pro reo and the burden of proof are at work here. Thus, in five chapters, the study reconstructs the historical evolution of dominant methods for its determination in criminal process, explains the mixed method as the most accepted doctrine at present, describes procedures and criteria recognized by the psychiatric community to have scientific value, and, finally, introduces some elements taken from the theory of communicative action and systems theory to address how to determine unimputability from outside the law and psychiatry. Thus, based on these elements, the work reconstructs the process of decision making on unimputability due to mental disorder and explains how the legal and health systems are related, through an analysis of the minimum conditions required for a good procedure focused on this aspect.