Legal control of medical sector in Serbia : 30 years after fall of Berlin wall

Simić, Jelena (2019) Legal control of medical sector in Serbia : 30 years after fall of Berlin wall. Iustinianus Primus Law Review. pp. 1-16. ISSN 1857-8683

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Abstract

The fall of the Berlin Wall is a historical event whose consequences could be felt throughout Europe at various levels. In 1989 the word “freedom” became a key term, and “return to Europe” an overall formla for understanding this historical event. What began as individuals’ effort to achieve freedom from lies and repression toward freedom of speech and art, three decades ago unstoppably opened a window to new scientific disciplines, at the same time developing and reinforcing some old ones. The latter was the case of medical law which focused on the issues concerning the very essence of medical sector and the actions of medical professionals. Medical law has become a field of cooperation, but also a field of “cold war” between doctors and lawyers. It took quite a long time for doctors to get used to the fact that their humane vocation is not capable of justifying every professional error and negligent treatment of a patient; that their medical procedures are also subject to legal control and that medicine must not do everything it is capable of doing. In the last decades of the 20th century, there were very few litigations against doctors and medical institutions in former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, whose integral part was the Republic of Serbia. Legal options and criminal and civil liabilities of medical professionals existed, but were rarely used. Today, thirty years later, the situation in the Republic of Serbia is somewhat different. There is a variety of legal safeguards of patient rights, but they mostly remain unused. This paper shall analyze how the legal control of the medical sector in the Republic of Serbia has transformed 30 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, which types of the legal control of the medical sector exist today, and whether the existing safeguards represent the necessary measure of protection of patients’ fundamental rights.

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