7.3 Excusable General Defences

7.3.1 Infancy Children below the age of criminal responsibility cannot commit crimes — doli incapax: the presumption of incapacity to do wrong. Nepal's graded ladder (by principle): below the minimum age (10 years under the Code's scheme), no criminal liability at all; then ascending bands of partial capacity with mandatory mitigation, juvenile-justice procedure under the Children's Act applying to minors (diversion, reformative dispositions — the child's welfare principle). Comparative: the common law's rebuttable doli incapax presumption (10-14) and its retreat; the ICCPR/Beijing Rules' child-justice standards (rehabilitation over retribution). The analytical points: infancy negates capacity (a status defence — no inquiry into the particular child's understanding below the fixed line); the age at the time of the act governs; the juvenile system's dilemma — protection vs. public alarm at grave juvenile crime. 7.3.2 Insanity No punishment where, at the time of the act, disease of the mind deprived the actor of the capacity to know the act's nature or its wrongness — furiosus nisi furore solum interfici potest (the madman is punished by his madness alone). The M'Naghten Rules (1843 — the common law's charter): it must be proved that at the act's time, under a defect of reason from disease of the mind, the accused (i) did not know the nature and quality of the act, or (ii) did not…