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The Criminal Justice System and Health Care

The Criminal Justice System and Health Care

Author: Charles A. Erin; Suzanne Ost
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 9780199228294
Published In: December 2007
Format: Hardback , 320 pages
Jurisdiction: U.K. ? Disclaimer:
Countri(es) stated herein are used as reference only

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Brings together expert contributions from a variety of disciplines such as law, medicine, philosophy, and ethics
Looks at the highly topical and rapidly evolving problems of the intersection between medical ethics and the criminal justice system
Looks at the rising number of prosecutions for medical manslaughter, assault, euthanasia, and other forms of aberrant professional conduct

This book examines questions of medical accountability and ethics. It analyses how the criminal justice system regulates health care practice, and to what extent it can and should be used as a tool to resolve ethical conflict in health care.

For most of the twentieth century, criminal courts were engaged in matters relating to medicine principally as a forum to resolve ethical controversies over the sanctity of life. However, the judiciary approached this function with reluctance and a marked tendency to defer to the medical profession to define what constituted ethical, and thus lawful, conduct. However, over the past 25 years, criminal courts have increasingly been drawn into these types of question, and the criminal law has become a major actor in the resolution of ethical conflict.

The trend to prosecute for aberrant professional conduct or medical malpractice and the role of the criminal process in medicine has been analytically neglected in the UK. There is scant literature addressing the appropriate boundaries of the criminal process in resolving ethical conflict, the theoretical legal analysis of the law's relationship with health care, or the practical impact of the criminal justice system on professionals and the delivery of health care in the UK. This volume addresses these issues via a combination of theoretical analyses and key case studies, drawing on the experiences of other carefully selected jurisdictions. It places a particular emphasis on the appropriateness of the involvement of the criminal justice system in health care, the limitations of this developing trend, and solutions to the problems it throws up. The book takes euthanasia as a primary example of the issues raised by the intersection of health care and the criminal law, and questions whether health care issues appropriately fall within the remit of the criminal justice system.

Readership: Academics, scholars, and advanced students of the English Criminal Justice System, Criminal Law, Health Care, Medicine, Medical Ethics, and Moral Philosphy. Health Care and Criminal Lawyers, Criminologists, Clinicians, Bioethicists, Moral Philosophers, and Jurists.

Graeme Catto: Foreword
Charles A. Erin & Suzanne Ost: Introduction
1: Margaret Brazier & Neil Allen: Criminalising Medical Malpractice
2: Oliver Quick: Medical Manslaughter: The Rise (and Replacement) of a Contested Crime?
3: Neil Allen: Medical or Managerial Manslaughter?
4: Alan Forbes Merry: When Are Errors a Crime? - Lessons from New Zealand
5: Suzanne Ost: Euthanasia and the Defence of Necessity: Advocating a More Appropriate Legal Response
6: John Griffiths: Criminal Law is the Problem, Not the Solution
7: Robert Destro: Lessons in Legal and Judicial Ethics from Schiavo: The Special Responsibilities of Lawyers and Judges in Cases Involving Persons with Severe Cognitive Disabilities
8: Michael Wilks: Assisted Dying Legislation: Ethical Dilemmas for Doctors
9: Elizabeth Wicks: Terminating Life and Human Rights: The Foetus and the Neonate
10: Stephen Smith: Dignity: The Difference between Abortion and Neonaticide for the Severely Disabled
11: Sergio Romeo-Malanda: Omission of Medical Treatment for Severely Disabled Newborns and Criminal Liability Under Spanish Law
12: Rebecca Bennett: Should We Criminalize HIV Transmission?
13: Charles A. Erin: The Rightful Domain of the Criminal Law
14: Jonathan Montgomery: Medicalising Crime? Criminalising Health?

Edited by Charles A. Erin, Senior Lecturer in Applied Philosophy, School of Law, University of Manchester, and Suzanne Ost, Senior Lecturer in Law, School of Law, Manchester University
Contributors:
Graeme Catto
Charles A. Erin
Suzanne Ost
Margaret Brazier
Neil Allen
Alan Merry
Oliver Quick
John Griffiths
Robert A. Destro
Michael Wilks
Elizabeth Wicks
Stephen Smith
Sergio Romeo-Malanda
Rebecca Bennett
Jonathan Montgomery