Legal Right To Cause Injury
- Doctors and all health professionals have a general right to assume a patient's consent for necessary treatment (per Denning LJ in Bravery v Bravery (1954) 3 AER 59). So if a person is brought into a hospital unconscious, surgery to preserve life will not be unlawful. But, if the health authorities have actual notice that the patient does not consent, even necessary treatment will be unlawful unless either it becomes urgently necessary to take action to avoid death, or consent is given either by a spouse or relative, or by a court. There have been cases, for example, where it was not to be an assault for prison hospitals for force-feed a prisoner on hunger strike, but such cases are not of general application. When in doubt, consent should be sought from the courts. In any event, treatment will only be lawful if it is of therapeutic rather than cosmetic value. Similarly, tattooing, ear piercing and other cosmetic procedures will be lawful if there is actual consent.
- Parents and others who are in loco parentis have a limited right to administer reasonable parental punishment: see A v UK (1998) CLR 892 and H (2002) 1 Cr. App. R. 59, but teachers are prohibited from administering corporal punishment: s548 Education Act 1996: Williams v Secretary of State for Education and Employment (2003) 1 AER 385.
Read more about this topic: Consent (criminal Law)
Famous quotes containing the words legal and/or injury:
“There are ... two minimum conditions necessary and sufficient for the existence of a legal system. On the one hand those rules of behavior which are valid according to the system’s ultimate criteria of validity must be generally obeyed, and on the other hand, its rules of recognition specifying the criteria of legal validity and its rules of change and adjudication must be effectively accepted as common public standards of official behavior by its officials.”
—H.L.A. (Herbert Lionel Adolphus)
“... too much attention is paid to dress by those who have neither the excuse of ample means nor of social claims.... The injury done by this state of things to the morals and the manners of our lower classes is incalculable.”
—Mrs. H. O. Ward (1824–1899)