MEDICAL SECRECY IN THE CRIMINAL PROCESS AND THE UKRAINIAN HEALTH CARE LEGISLATION

Abstract

It is researched the scientific and normative model of medical secrecy in the criminal process and the legislation of Ukraine on health care, reveals the problems of legal regulation in this area, studies the experience of foreign countries, develops scientifically sound proposals to improve current legislation of Ukraine. It is substantiated that professional medical secrecy is the availability of information about the seeking medical help; data about treatment; medical information about the person; awareness of the medical and non-medical nature of the patient’s family and his intimate life. It is determined that the legal regime of the protection of person’s right to medical secrecy in the criminal process of Ukraine provides the possibility of its temporary restriction, and in some cases – the absolute inviolability of this right. There are disclosed the legislator’s approaches for determining the grounds for medical institutions to provide the prosecution with information covered by the concept of “medical secrecy”. It is stated that the legal grounds for medical institutions to provide information about a person constituting a medical secret to a side of criminal proceedings are not the same due to the lack of unified and consistent view of the legislator. It is argued that the rules determining the conditions and procedure for information providing about medical secrecy should be clear and unambiguous, provide sufficient guarantees against possible arbitrariness and abuse by the state. There are developed the amendments and additions to the current legislation of Ukraine, according to them the unified legal basis for the disclosure by medical institutions of medical secrecy information must be the decision of the investigating judge or court. It is proposed that the treatment and prevention facilities where a person is taken because of an accident should be limited to informing law enforcement agencies about the fact of seeking medical help without detailing the diagnosis and other health conditions. In this case, such information should be provided in an impersonal form, if the patient has not given voluntary consent to the disclosure of data about him.