The Department of Justice is examining whether the procedures for dealing with people acquitted of crimes due to insanity should be revised after confusion surrounded the end of a trial involving a sleepwalking prostitute who tried to kill a friend.
Mr Justice Michael McMahon in the Court of First Instance on Thursday suggested the government needed to address the issue of what to do with a defendant immediately after a verdict of insanity was delivered.
The law as it stands requires the judge to obtain several reports about the defendant before deciding how best to deal with their condition, yet there is apparently no clear power enabling them to be remanded while reports are prepared.
Mr Justice McMahon was at that stage deciding what to do with Zheng Wei-dong, a 30-year-old prostitute, who on Wednesday was found not guilty by reason of insanity of a single count of attempted murder.
The judge eventually ordered Zheng to be remanded at Castle Peak Hospital until December 13 while the required reports were prepared. However, he did so only after deciding that in the absence of clear statutory guidance he could only infer that the legislature could not have intended that criminally insane people be automatically released pending the production of reports.
There was further confusion yesterday after it was discovered that the judge was actually unable to order Zheng to be remanded at Castle Peak Hospital as he had tried to do on Thursday.