EXTRAORDINARY PATH TO THIS TEXT

Presentations in 2019 in Vienna and Prague Austrian-Czech research of public interest in law reflected this author's understanding of public health at that time. Those presentations identified the words in titles of statutes and provisions establishing policies, in exemptions from freedoms and in rights and freedoms, and public health as science, practice, and agenda. Three themes were selected to exemplify public health issues: compulsory vaccination, controversial in liberal society, the 2012 Methanol Poisonings in Czechia as a public health emergency and financing and organisation of health care.

I examined notions of terms. Language is the medium of law. As regards “health” is in the titles of statutes and their provisions, we tend to its official definition and can discuss its limits. The adjective “public“, and its cognates “collective”, ” joint” “popular” and “national” with absent opposites “private” or “individual” invite consideration. English makes communication in the project symmetric and enables presentation of results to international readership. However, it is the language of Anglo-American law, which differs from continental law to which Czechia and Austria adhere. The meaning of other languages’ equivalents could differ.

Even a brief insight revealed that public health is a specific discipline, combining medicine, statistics, economics and policy. Medical students take courses in public health. Public health encompasses the legal aspects of medicine if not addressed separately. There are experts in this field. Governments have authorities for public health, which then generate specific agendas.

However, other notions were also apparent. (Public) health justifies exceptions from rights and freedoms in statutory frameworks. It is an argument in constitutional scrutiny of restrictions of fundamental rights and freedoms, if not stipulated in constitutions. We identify it in a similar position in international and supranational laws. Member States of the Council of Europe can limit fundamental rights and freedoms of the European Convention on Human Rights, and – if bound by the Oviedo Convention – those specified for biomedicine.