La responsabilite personnelle civile et penale du chirurgien esthetique
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Abstract EN:
The difficult implementation of plastic surgeon civil liability and criminal responsibility is increasingly worrying, with the present craze for his/her trade and because of dissension between judges, patients and doctors. It seems essential to start by showing the original aspects of the plastic surgeon's sources of responsibleness, that the 1994 legislation on bioethics did not help clarify, in the absence of an indisputably therapeutic goal to the latter's work. On the one hand, plastic surgery being a real attack on human physical integrity, is punishable in principle. However, the plastic surgeon needs legal permission to exercise his trade, of course in certain circumstances, and non respect of legal requirements would entail criminal responsibility on his/her part. On the other hand, consent is of paramount importance because relationships between the surgeon and the patient are contractual. This contract requirement, on the increase since the decree of october 17, 1996, determines the conditions for a surgeon's civil liability whose professional obligations are thus reinforced. Consequently, developments are liable to be complex for such responsibleness which fall foul of practitioners' wrath faced with interference from magistrates in their professional field and patient compensation claims, even when no medical fault has been proven. Judges, as arbitrators, have, not without paradox, on the one hand, the difficult task of overcoming the throes of compensation, as they are dependent on medical appraisals and on the other hand, are faced with the hazards of repression, as penal laws are generally all too often difficult to apply to the specificity of plastic surgery. Perhaps the time is now ripe for legislators to help them a little
Abstract FR:
Les difficultes de mise en oeuvre de la responsabilite personnelle, civile et penale du chirurgien esthetique deviennent de plus en plus preoccupantes avec l'engouement actuel pour son art et a cause de la mesintelligence regnant entre les juges, les patients et les medecins. Il s'avere indispensable de commencer par degager les originalites des sources de la responsabilisation du plasticien, que les lois de 1994 sur la bioethique, n'ont pas contribue a clarifier, en l'absence de but indiscutablement therapeutique de l'activite de celui-ci. D'une part, le fait chirurgical esthetique etant une veritable atteinte a l'integrite physique humaine, il est, en principe, punissable. Toutefois, l'exercice de la chirurgie esthetique implique que le praticien beneficie d'une permission legale, sous certaines conditions, bien sur, dont le non-respect entraine sa responsabilite penale. D'autre part, les rapports entre le chirurgien et le patient etant consideres comme d'ordre contractuel, le consentement est primordial. Cette contractualisation, croissante avec l'arrete du 17 octobre 1996, est determinante des conditions de la responsabilite civile de l'homme de l'art medical dont les obligations se trouvent ici renforcees. Des lors s'annoncent complexes les developpements de cette responsabilisation en proie au mecontentement des praticiens face a l'immixion des magistrats dans leur domaine et aux revendications des patients d'indemnisation meme lorsqu'aucune faute medicale n'est etablie. Les juges, arbitres, ont, d'une part, la delicate mission de pallier les affres de la reparation, non sans paradoxe, tributaires qu'ils sont des expertises medicales et sont, d'autre part, confrontes aux aleas de la repression, les textes penaux d'ordre general etant souvent difficiles a appliquer a la specificite de la chirurgie esthetique. Le moment n'est-il donc pas venu de les aider un peu legislativement ?