ABSTRACT
The purpose of this chapter is to consider those defences which are of general application, in order to determine whether they provide the equal protection of the law to women defendants and to women as the victims of crime. By ‘defences of general application’, I mean those which apply (at least in theory) equally to men and women. Of these defences, provocation and diminished responsibility apply only in relation to murder and are ‘partial’, in the sense that, if successfully pleaded, they serve only to reduce criminal liability, rather than to eliminate it entirely.1 Self-defence (more accurately, justifiable force)2
operates as a complete defence. So, too, do duress and necessity, although the former, at least, does not apply in respect of murder or attempted murder.3
Nevertheless, for present purposes, all of these categories of excuse and/or justification, complete or partial, are termed ‘general defences’, in that, by contrast with those discussed by Donald Nicolson in Chapter 9, they apply to both men and women.
