The legal paradox of the nurse and the ethics of nursing. Consent, accountability, technology and practice. How do we understand nursing law and the ethics of nursing? This may seem like it could be part of nursing theory but here we will explore case law and legislation - both domestic and European and what this means in relation to our actions as practitioners.
Basics of Law
To understand why we have a professional body and why we act in a particular fashion as nurses it is important to have a grasp of how law works.
The law of the UK comes from two principle sources: domestic legislation, or statute law, which are Acts passed by Parliament. These can be as diverse as the Badgers Act, to Health and Safety, to the Theft Act. Statute law is noted as being the voice of the people. These are laws which are passed by the majority vote, the majority, of course, being those elected representatives of the people. Obviously, there is an intrinsic imbalance here but this is something that doesn't need discussion at the moment. Suffice to say Statute law are Acts enacted by Parliament and govern day to day activities. The second source of law is that derived from Cases which have been decided over centuries, these decisions are called Precedents and form a body of enquiry in which to look at how a decision might be made on a particular case. Negligence, manslaughter, duty of care are examples of decisions which have been grounded in Case law.
Law exists in two entities then - as coming from Parliament and as coming from previous decisions in cases. These can be further divided into Criminal and civil conduct. Criminal acts are those which are illegal in law, and are seen as prohibitive to society. They may or may not be morally wrong - homosexuality, for instance was prohibited in law until the late 60's; rape within marriage was not illegal until 1991. So you see, two morally contentious issues which had a state in law - illegal and legal. Civil wrongs are those which the State (government) deem as not offensive to society as a whole but which may offend the individual. As such, the State does not play a major role in these cases; it is the individual who brings the case. Criminal cases are brought by the State on behalf of the victim and are signified as R v Somebody . Civil cases are called after the two parties involved.
So, that's the law in a nutshell. Civil and Criminal; Case (or Common) and Statute law. Since joining the EU we also have an obligation to ensure our legislation is in line with the rest of Europe, and so we have a third source of Law, European, which can be useful should we not be able to find a remedy within our own Court system. Human Rights law, for instance, is an example of EU/International law which has passed into our own domestic legislation.
