A qualificação jurídico-penal do acto médico

: os pressupostos do artigo 150.º, n.º 1 do Código Penal e o significado e o alcance do crime previsto pelo n.º 2 deste artigo

Abstract

Within its social utility and importance, the medical activity is connected to a deep multiplicity of risks and, consequently, to the possibility of causing severe damage and injuries to the patients’ health. Doctors are not “demi-Gods”, to whom one may never impute any kind of responsibility, so Criminal Law does not refrain from intervening when its most important legal goods are being affected. This dissertation focuses on the doctors’ criminal responsibility, or, in other words, on the criminal practice associated to their profession, which translates to a damage of legal goods, such as life, physical integrity, and health. To some legal systems, medical acts represent violations to the physical integrity of the individual. For instance, the Portuguese Criminal Law grants, as the Article 150(1) states, total autonomy to the medical-surgical treatment and intervention framework, referring that if the medical act obeys to the 4 concepts present in this precept (that is, practiced by a doctor or other legally authorized personnel, healing intention, objective indication and respect for the leges artis), such will not translate to corporal injury. It is this exact article - present in an exclusion clause within the typicality of medical interventions from the perspective of corporal injuries and murder - that we will be analyzing in this investigation.

Date of Award	11 Jul 2022
Original language	Portuguese
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	Maria Paula Ribeiro de Faria (Supervisor)