ABSTRACT
France, Germany and the UK have ratified the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and in all three countries; legislation must be interpreted so as to be compatible with Convention rights. Therefore, it is important to be clear about the protection of the principle of medical confidentiality under the Convention. At the Nice summit in December 2000, the European Council proclaimed the European Charter of Fundamental Rights. If a State decides to recognise medical privilege, conflict between medical confidentiality and defence rights of an accused person may arise. It can be seen that the recognition of medical privilege is not mandated by the provisions of the ECHR, the European Convention on Human Rights and Biomedicine, the European Charter and the Data Protection Directive. All of these documents provide for exceptions to the protection of privacy and medical confidentiality for the purposes of criminal prosecution and crime prevention. In principle, defence rights do not stand in the way of medical privilege.
