THE DOCTRINE OF PATIENT’S INFORMED CONSENT IN THE LEGISLATION AND JURISPRUDENCE OF CZECH REPUBLIC, AUSTRIA AND THE LATVIAN REPUBLIC

Abstract

The article represents the history, emergence and the contemporary state of development of the legal doctrine of the patient’s informed consent to medical interventions in Czech Republic, Austria and the Latvian Republic. The authors focus on the vaults of the doctrine of the doctor’s obligation to abstain from conducting any medical interventions without the consent, or against the will of the patient, since the expression of the patient’s will is the central element of his right to self-determination. In order to discover the main features of informed consent in the civil law perspective, the authors discuss the historical and current legal developments of the legal institute of patient’s informed consent. The authors conclude that the formation of the institute owes to the right to body integrity and limitation of the exercise of medical profession by practitioners, and that the civil law doctrine of informed consent differs from Anglo-American tort law, relying on statutory-based civil liability for negligence, as well as minor penal liability for battery, an occasional interpretation of unauthorized medical intervention. The authors emphasize, that the existing bodies of Austrian, Czech and Latvian case law relating to informed consent, which span for over a century, are sufficient to become a branch of Continental medical malpractice case law alongside with aged and well-developed French or Belgian medical jurisprudence, whereas the Latvian medical jurisprudence, despite having a rich history of emergence since the 1920s, has developed a solid body of case law in regard with patient’s rights relatively recently.