Questions concerning criminal liability in connection with HIV infection arise for the National Board of Health and Welfare in Sweden as a result of the provisions contained in the Swedish Communicable Diseases Act.
Abridged version in English of the Swedish report Hivsmitta och brottmål : en analys av rättsläget by Professor Madeleine Leijonhufvud, Stockholm University.
Article no 2009-126-169.
Questions concerning criminal liability in connection with HIV infection arise for the National Board of Health and Welfare in Sweden (Socialstyrelsen) as a result of the provisions contained in the Swedish Communicable Diseases Act on the duties of doctors and communicable disease control physicians providing treatment when there is good reason to suppose that a person carrying a dangerous illness is not following the rules of conduct laid down for him/her. Questions also need to be answered in relation to the rules on confidentiality under the Public Access to Information and Secrecy Act which apply within health and medical care.
An exception from that confidentiality applies in the case of information to the office of the public prosecutor, a police authority or any other authority which must intervene against an offence if a term of imprisonment of at least one year is prescribed for the offence in question. In order to carry out an assessment regarding confidentiality, it is therefore necessary to be able to assess how a court would regard the act and how it would be classified. A brief report is given below on how Swedish criminal law governs acts which involve transmission of HIV infection through sexual intercourse or which entail a risk of such transmission.
Download the abridged version in english
HIV infection and criminal cases. An analysis of the legal situation
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