Unity of Case-Law as an Indicator for the Development of Single Medical Space

Abstract

The article is focused on the analysis of the unity of law-enforcement approaches for resolving medical disputes and their significance for a single medical space formation. A great influence of case-law on the health care system functioning was established. The authors analyzed the most common disputes in the medical area, where achieving a reasonable balance of private and public interests is of great importance for a single medical space formation, namely for: ensuring information security in the healthcare sector; organizing medical examinations and preventive vaccinations; ensuring certain rights of patients (respecting the rights of persons with mental or behavioral disorders; realization of reproductive rights; ensuring the right of patients or relatives to compensation for moral damage caused during the provision of medical care). The key legal positions of the Supreme Court on such categories of cases were studied. It was noted that the activity of the European Court of Human Rights, which acts as a supranational mean of human rights protection, is important for national judicial practice. At the same time, the authors indicated a significant number of deviations from precedent practice, which is negatively perceived by the ECHR and recognized as violations of the Convention on the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. Judicial monitoring as a modern tool for ensuring regulatory legal acts’ quality and effective mean for eliminating medical legislation’s defects was studied. The authors offered to use court decisions as law sources in order to overcome legislative gaps, ambiguous and contradictory legal interpretations.