The meaning of consent of the patient on informed-consent

On the analysis of recent Japanese judicial precedents

Abstract

Since the 3rd revision of Medical Service Law in 1997 in Japan, informed-consent has been clarified as a legal duty at each medical setting. However, although the legal meaning of the “setsumei (inform)” was shown in the judicial precedent, the legal meaning of the “doui (consent)” has not been clarified. Then, we investigated on what is “doui ” in the judicial precedent on the analysis of judicial precedents related with the medical issue case. The “TKC low library” (LEX/DB) of the judicial precedent database was used, and retrieval by keyword was conducted. The keywords were “informed-consent”, and its Japanese translation “setsumei to doui (explanation and consent)”, and also “doui ” and its Japanese synonym, “goui (agreement)”, and “shoudaku (consent)” were selected. The number of judicial precedents extracted as a result of search was 128. All were scrutinized, and 20 cases which showed about the “doui ” were listed on the table. The total number of the judicial precedent on the (LEX/DB) database was 243,324, and the number of stored magazines was 127 (as of March 23, 2013). The number of the cases related with the keyword “informed-consent” was 125, and that of the case with “setsumei to doui ” was 32. Moreover, as for other key words “doui ” was 22,024, “goui ” was 31,918 and “shoudaku ” was 33,880. Among the Supreme Court judicial precedents, what is the “doui ” has not been clarified；however, there were some lower court cases which described the “doui ” of its judicial meanings and aspects. Some suggested the relationship between the “consent” and the consent form, which was widely used at each medical setting at this moment. On the other hand, there was another opinion that the strict tight-laced informed-consent might have given some impulse to the increasing recent tendency of a doctor's labor.