Scope

Submitted works are published within five thematic sections:

• Section I – General: legal and legal-ethical scholarly articles in the broad field of medical and pharmaceutical law, including interdisciplinary studies (co-authorship by lawyers with physicians, medical ethicists, and representatives of the natural and social sciences is encouraged).
• Section II: "Law in Medical Practice": accessible discussions—especially for members of the medical professions—of legal issues that arise spontaneously in the context of practicing medicine.
• Section III: "From the Courtroom": glosses, problem-focused commentaries on individual rulings, case studies, and surveys of case law.
• Section IV: "Changes in the Law": discussions of changes in the applicable law that are significant for the practice of medicine.
• Section V: "Commentaries, Opinions, Reports, Reviews": thematic reports from scientific conferences, reviews of publications in medical law and medical ethics, legal opinions, and commentaries on current issues in medical law and ethics.

Guidelines for preparing case studies: A case study (studium przypadku, analiza przypadku) is successfully used especially in the medical and social sciences. A study prepared for the needs of medical law should combine features of a gloss, a case study, and a legal opinion. As you can see, it is a syncretic literary form. Its shape depends on the source of the case: a court judgment, the preparatory (or explanatory) stage of proceedings, a medical opinion for court proceedings, an oral presentation at a scientific conference, or even the press—provided the medical facts are described with sufficient reliability.

A case study should consist of the following parts:

1. The first is the statement of facts, including all elements relevant to the case. Medical professionals will want to learn as many medical details as possible, since their shortage will prevent a full understanding of the legal issues.
2. The second part outlines the legal issue: what the dispute boils down to and which legal questions require resolution.
3. The third part, in the case of a gloss on a court judgment, is a discussion of that judgment together with the parts of the reasoning that are material to the problem. If there are several legal issues, for the purposes of the study one may extract just one and cite the reasoning only for that thread (e.g., when the case is very complex and multi-threaded), or list all threads in the second part and cite the reasoning for all of them. The latter is more effective, because the threads usually overlap and condition one another.
4. The fourth part is the author’s own commentary on the decision, explaining what the court was aiming at, why it ruled as it did, and whether it did so rightly. Referring to other similar judgments—either those cited in the reasoning or those identified independently—is useful if it allows the problem to be illuminated and considered from many angles, for example from the point of view of a patient of another sex, a different age, or one performing a particular profession. If the matter concerns only the preparatory (or explanatory) stage, then instead of the reasoning of the judgment, the justification of the prosecutor’s decision (or of the professional liability ombudsman) should be provided and commented on.

If the author opts for a pure case study, i.e., one that has not entered legal proceedings, then the third and final part contains the legal assessment: how, in the author’s view, such a case should be resolved and why—that is, essentially, a legal opinion.