Abstract
Litigation concerning the violation of patient’s rights, which are associated with informed consent, confidentiality, right to information and medical records, as well as occasionally with end-of-life decision- making are quite frequent in common law and civil law jurisdictions, and has lasted for over a century in issues concerning malpractice, or unauthorized medical interventions and breaches of medical confidentiality. However, what could we say about medical law-related litigation in Japan? Technically, the legal system of Japan is a civil law one, but is practically post-traditional, which is reflected in extreme paternalism in healthcare and patient-physician relationships, which could be observed before the recent decades and which still has some impact on the modern Japanese medical law, despite the number of medical law-related litigation is becoming more frequent nowadays. The Japanese legislation does not have a specific “patient’s rights law” in contrast to European states, and most of the principles relating to medical malpractice derive from case law – the practice of the Supreme Court and of the lower courts. Each of the decisions strongly depends upon the factual circumstances, and the post-traditional features of the legal system may have some impact on it.
Highlights
Background and research methodsThe protection of patient’s rights is a core issue of medical law, alongside with discussing specific rights, or solving complicated legal problems originating from patient-physician relationships, frequently in relation with intensive care and the limits of providing medicalДоктрина медичного права assistance, which is closely connected with state control, or with informing patients on their state of health, and apparently, with potential civil and criminal liability of medical practitioners, which can be avoided in case appropriate legal requirements are met
Such legal requirements are frequently not codified, or the provisions are general in their nature
I am going to compare the existing rights of the patients in the Republic of Latvia, as a civil law jurisdiction, and in Japan, which is technically a civil law jurisdiction, though a post-traditional one, which still has some certain impact on the functioning of the said legal system
Summary
Background and research methodsThe protection of patient’s rights is a core issue of medical law, alongside with discussing specific rights, or solving complicated legal problems originating from patient-physician relationships, frequently in relation with intensive care and the limits of providing medicalДоктрина медичного права assistance, which is closely connected with state control (usually by the courts and auxiliary institutions), or with informing patients on their state of health, and apparently, with potential civil and criminal liability of medical practitioners, which can be avoided in case appropriate legal requirements are met. 458–461]) found for defendant, in spite of the fact they truly recognized the patient’s right to self-determination (and it was probably one of the first times that a Japanese court spoke about it directly), and they firmly stressed that doctors have a discretion concerning how much information they may provide the patient.
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