Review article

End-of-life directives

Nenad Hlača ; Faculty of Law, University of Rijeka, Rijeka, Croatia

Abstract

According the right to selfdetermination, legal orders of many states adopted the acts on the respect of the right on end-of-life decisions. The part of Croatian legal order is the Convention for the protection of human rights and dignity of the human being with regard to the application of biology and medicine: Convention on human rights and medicine which stated that previously expresed wishes relating to medical intervention by a patient who is not, at the time of the intervention, in a state to express his or her wishes shall be taken into account. So, in Croatia legal framework exists, however particular legal form is still missing. In this paper, starting from comparative approach and interpretation of Croatian positive law, it is concluded that the special act related to the end-of-life decisions should be adopted soon. This act should prescribe an obligatory legal form which will protect the right to selfdetermination of the comptetent patient to decide in advance about withdrawing of life sustaining medical treatment.

Keywords

advance directives; life sustaining treatment; right to selfdetermination

Hrčak ID:

26839

URI

https://hrcak.srce.hr/26839

Publication date:

1.9.2008.

Article data in other languages: croatian

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