LEGAL CONTROL OF MEDICAL SECTOR IN SERBIA

30 YEARS AFTER FALL OF BERLIN WALL

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.