Normative and legal regulation of the questioning of medical workers as witnesses in criminal proceedings: problems of the conceptual apparatus

Abstract

This article examines the terminological problems of legal regulation of the questioning of medical workers as witnesses in criminal proceedings. For this purpose, the criminal procedural norms regulating the questioning of a medical worker in the status of a witness, as well as the provisions of the Civil Code of Ukraine, the Fundamentals of Ukrainian legislation on health protection, and secondary regulatory legal acts (Rules for prescribing prescriptions for medicinal products and medical products, Instructions on the work of departments (groups, sectors, senior inspectors) monitoring the execution of court decisions of penal institutions and remand prisons, the Procedure for the provision of medical care to those sentenced to imprisonment, the Rules of Internal Procedure of remand prisons of the State Criminal Enforcement Service of Ukraine).
 It was established that Clause 4, Part 2, Art. 65 of the Criminal Procedure Code of Ukraine (hereinafter referred to as the Criminal Procedure Code of Ukraine) of medical workers who, in connection with the performance of professional or official duties, became aware of an illness, medical examination, examination and their results, intimate and family aspects of a person’s life - about information, which constitute a medical secret, it is not allowed to be questioned as witnesses. In such a case, interrogation is possible on the condition that the medical worker is released from the obligation to keep professional secrecy by the person who entrusted them with this information, to the extent determined by him.
 It was found that, as of today, in Ukrainian legislation, the term «medical worker» is contained in several subordinate legal acts, and their content is not the same; the term «medical secrecy» is not formally defined, and such a component of the term «medical secrecy» as «intimate and family aspects of a person’s life» is not defined either in the criminal procedural law or in any other regulatory legal acts.
 Conclusions were made about the need to improve the conceptual apparatus in terms of regulating the questioning of medical workers as witnesses by unifying and specifying the terms «medical worker» and «medical confidentiality», as well as making changes to Clause 4, Part 2 of Art. 65 further - CCP of Ukraine.