La responsabilité pénale du psychiatre du fait de son patient

Abstract

If the criminal liability remains personal, recent case law has tended to broaden the hypotheses for the doctor's criminal liability in the case of unintentional offenses. The question particularly concerns the psychiatrist, because of acts committed by his patient, on the basis of articles 221-6 or 222-19 of the French penal code. However, judicial assessment of the fault and its causal link with the damage does not impose on the psychiatrist an obligation of result, insofar as only serious professional misconduct, manifestly not in accordance with the rules of medical art, are sanctioned.