Medical power and criminal procedure

Abstract

For a long time, one of the privileges characteristic of sovereign power was the right over life and death. In the classical era, the existing mechanisms of power were reshaped in the West; so, according to Foucault, instead of the old right to condemn to death or leave alive, the power to leave alive or reject to death entered the scene. The transformation of the mechanisms of power led to the transition to the investigative model of the criminal procedure in which the discussion of the causa criminalis moved to the territory of knowledge. The development of investigative methods in acquiring the first economic and administrative knowledge had a significant impact on the introduction of investigation in criminal matters. Certain authors state that in the 16th and 17th centuries, thinking about medicine, botany, and zoology was like a collection of testimonies. For this reason, even in criminal proceedings, special importance is attached to experts who have special non-legal knowledge, and as such are qualified to communicate the truth. The role of experts in the medical profession is specific in that, in addition to giving testimony on the subject matter of the expertise, they also have essentially judicial powers because their opinion has a decisive influence on the limitation of certain basic freedoms and human rights. The paper will also analyze the provisions of certain domestic laws, as well as the standards of the European Court of Human Rights expressed in connection with the legal institution of English law „at Her Majestyʼs pleasure."