02/04/2026
Insanity Defence in Malaysia — Not as Simple as You Think
A lot of people assume this:
If someone has a mental illness, they can escape criminal responsibility.
But that’s not how the law works.
In Malaysia, the bar is actually very high.
Under Section 84 of the Penal Code, the person must be so mentally affected that they couldn’t understand what they were doing, or didn’t know it was wrong.
That’s a very strict test.
Here’s where it gets interesting.
Modern psychiatry tells us that a person might still know something is wrong — but at the same time, be unable to control their actions because of their condition.
And this is where the gap appears.
I’ve seen situations where someone clearly had serious mental issues, but still didn’t qualify for the insanity defence.
In the eyes of the law, they were treated the same as someone fully in control.
From a legal point of view, this is why strategy matters.
We don’t just rely on one argument. If insanity doesn’t succeed, we look at whether the person truly had the intention required for a serious charge like murder.
Sometimes, the more realistic outcome is not a full acquittal — but a reduced charge.
At the end of the day, the real question is this:
Should the law only look at what a person did —
or also at the state of mind they were in when they did it?
Justice should not be one-dimensional.
It should punish when necessary, but also understand and treat where appropriate.
Fiat Justitia, Ruat Caellum
Ridha Abdah Subri
