The development of the concept of the patients informed consent

Abstract

Background: The European Convention on Human Rights is the key legal document that outlines the basic human rights and freedoms. It’s a comprehensive, universal document with broad regulation despite its laconic nature. Its context is quite broad and, among other things, it deals with a whole range of the so-called “medical rights”, such as the availability of medical care and its timeliness, including on specialized treatment and medical research, informed consent to medical procedures and its results, etc. The article reviews the history of the concept of informed consent in the light of various cases from the practice of different states. After that, it analyses Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and the judicial practice of the European Court of Human Rights with regard to informed consent to medical intervention.
Method: The method of doctrinal research is used to make conclusions on the above-mentioned topics.
Conclusions: It is argued that article 8 of the convention encompasses “the right to be free from non-consensual medical treat-ment or examination, holding that “a compulsory medical intervention, even if it is of minor importance”, as well as the imposi-tion of a medical examination, constitute an interference with the right to private life”. Its shown that the ECHR is the powerful instrument to protect the medical rights of the patients and to ensure their informed consent to various medical procedures