The global pandemic, known to all as Covid-19, has also left its mark on Justice – Health and Medicine

2024-01-03 02:37:51

What would happen if a person’s legal “guardian” opposed the person being vaccinated against Covid-19? Let’s put ourselves in the situation, the son and “guardian” of an elderly woman with judicially modified capacity, due to the Alzheimer’s disease she suffered from and which prevented her from giving her free consent (as required by the Basic Law of Patient Autonomy). , appealed the resolution authorizing his mother’s vaccination.

The appellant based his claim on the violation of the following fundamental rights: equality and non-discrimination (art. 14 EC), personal privacy (art. 18 EC) and physical integrity, as vaccination in Spain is voluntary (art. 15 EC). The son’s allegations forced the Constitutional Court to examine whether the administration of the vaccine had been authorized without proper legal coverage. It did so in ruling No. 38/2023, of April 20, which resolved the appeal for protection filed, where the violation of the aforementioned rights was rejected; The first is that there is no specific mandatory vaccination regime for people with disabilities. Regarding the second, it was ruled that the administration of the vaccine lacked any investigative pretension into aspects of the woman’s private life. As for the third, it was determined that the provision that legitimizes interference in the personal integrity of the patient required judicial intervention presided over by purposes strictly protecting the interests of the affected person. To do this, they weighed the following criteria: the reliability of the vaccine, the assimilation of the risk to that of any other authorized vaccine, the risk context for it; both because of her age and because she lives in a residence, the expert reports, the lack of contraindication and the consequences of not getting vaccinated in her daily life. For all these reasons, it was concluded that the decision adopted by the judicial authority, favorable to the vaccination of women, did not exceed the limits of coverage of the enabling precept. Alejandra Beltran Gil. Prosecutor attached to the Public Prosecutor’s Office of Sabadell