Medical Error Between Civil and Penal Responsibilities

Abstract

The subject of medical legal liability is of great importance on both the scientific and practical levels, given the connection between the matter and the human body and life. This subject has sparked widespread controversy in jurisprudence and the judiciary about the nature of this medical liability, and this medical legal liability may manifest itself in both forms of civil liability. Contractual and negligent acts, and their trend towards activating and consecrating professional responsibility, as well as the establishment of criminal liability against the doctor in the event that he commits a criminal medical error, whether they are intentional crimes or unintentional crimes by mistake, which are the prevailing ones. ​So the medical work is considered a humanitarian act practiced by qualified persons within the framework of the law that regulates the performance of doctors’ duties and arranges their responsibilities in case of error, as the law imposes as a general rule on doctors while performing their duties to exercise care and not achieve a result, because the tasks of doctors in their various specialties are difficult and dangerous, and therefore their responsibility is not It is established simply because of a simple error without the presence of harm to the patient, as the Algerian legislator requires in this regard that there is a causal relationship between the error and the damage in order for the medical liability to be established, which ranges between civil and penal responsibilities. The aim of this study is to determine the civil and criminal liability of the doctor and health professionals in Algerian law and the Law for the Protection of Doctors and Health Facilities. The Health Protection Law completely dropped criminal liability for the professional errors of the doctor and health professionals.