El nuevo marco normativo de la responsabilidad de los servidores públicos

In recent years there has been a notable change in the regulation of the responsibility of public servants. The repeal of the Law on the Legal Regime of Public Administrations, the modification of the Criminal Code and the approval of the Transparency Law have created a new framework. This text tries to expose the current Spanish regulation on these issues. Therefore, it offers a global vision of the criminal, patrimonial and disciplinary responsibility of public servants, accompanied by a critical vision on the practise.En los últimos dos años se ha producido un cambio notable en la regulación de la responsabilidad de los servidores públicos. La derogación de la vieja Ley del Régimen Jurídico de las Administraciones Públicas, la modificación del Código Penal, o la aprobación de la nueva Ley de Transparencia han contribuido mucho a construir un nuevo panorama. Este texto intenta exponer cómo ha quedado la normativa actualmente. Por tanto, se ofrece una visión global de la responsabilidad penal, patrimonial y disciplinaria de la materia, acompañada de una visión crítica sobre la realidad práctica a la que da lugar.In recent years there has been a notable change in the regulation of the responsibility of public servants. The repeal of the Law on the Legal Regime of Public Administrations, the modification of the Criminal Code and the approval of the Transparency Law have created a new framework. This text tries to expose the current Spanish regulation on these issues. Therefore, it offers a global vision of the criminal, patrimonial and disciplinary responsibility of public servants, accompanied by a critical vision on the practise

¿Existe un derecho a la identidad genética?

Is there a right to have a genetic identity? This question has usually been answered in an affirmative way. This paper tries to demonstrate that this conclusion is only right when we talk about adult people. However, in the case of clones, it is not possible to think about a rignt of this kind, but a rignt to not live. This means that Laws must include the recognition of that right, if they do not want their banning of human cloning to became meaningless.¿Existe un derecho a poseer una identidad genética propia? La respuesta a esta pregunta ha sido, tradicionalmente, afirmativa. El presente texto trata de demostrar que esta conclusión sólo es correcta cuando hablamos de seres humanos adultos. Sin embargo, en el caso de los clones, no es posible hablar de este tipo de derecho, sino de un derecho a no vivir. Esto significa que las leyes deben incluir el reconocimiento de ese derecho, si no quieren que sus prohibiciones a la clonación pierdan todo su sentido

Digital Covid Certificates as Immunity Passports: An Analysis of Their Main Ethical, Legal, and Social Issues

Digital COVID certificates are a novel public health policy to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic. These immunity certificates aim to incentivize vaccination and to deny international travel or access to essential spaces to those who are unable to prove that they are not infectious. In this article, we start by describing immunity certificates and highlighting their differences from vaccination certificates. Then, we focus on the ethical, legal, and social issues involved in their use, namely autonomy and consent, data protection, equity, and international mobility from a global fairness perspective. The main conclusion of our analysis is that digital COVID certificates are only acceptable if they meet certain conditions: that they should not process personal data beyond what is strictly necessary for the aimed goals, that equal access to them should be guaranteed, and that they should not restrict people’s autonomy to access places where contagion is unlikely.We conclude that, if such conditions are guaranteed, digital COVID certificates could contribute to mitigating some of the most severe socioeconomic consequences of the pandemic.Universidad de Granada/CBUA European Commission 788039La Caixa Foundation LCF/BQ/DR20/11790005Ayudas a Grupos de Investigacion IT-10661

Digital Covid Certificates as Immunity Passports: An Analysis of Their Main Ethical, Legal, and Social Issues

Digital COVID certificates are a novel public health policy to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic. These immunity certificates aim to incentivize vaccination and to deny international travel or access to essential spaces to those who are unable to prove that they are not infectious. In this article, we start by describing immunity certificates and highlighting their differences from vaccination certificates. Then, we focus on the ethical, legal, and social issues involved in their use, namely autonomy and consent, data protection, equity, and international mobility from a global fairness perspective. The main conclusion of our analysis is that digital COVID certificates are only acceptable if they meet certain conditions: that they should not process personal data beyond what is strictly necessary for the aimed goals, that equal access to them should be guaranteed, and that they should not restrict people’s autonomy to access places where contagion is unlikely. We conclude that, if such conditions are guaranteed, digital COVID certificates could contribute to mitigating some of the most severe socioeconomic consequences of the pandemic.Funding for open access charge: Universidad de Granada / CBUA European Commission (H2020 SWAFS Programme, PANELFIT Project, research grant number 788039), Eusko Jaurlaritza (Ayudas a Grupos de Investigación IT-106616), and La Caixa Foundation (LCF/BQ/ DR20/11790005)

Digital Covid Certificates as Immunity Passports: An Analysis of Their Main Ethical, Legal, and Social Issues

Digital COVID certificates are a novel public health policy to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic. These immunity certificates aim to incentivize vaccination and to deny international travel or access to essential spaces to those who are unable to prove that they are not infectious. In this article, we start by describing immunity certificates and highlighting their differences from vaccination certificates. Then, we focus on the ethical, legal, and social issues involved in their use, namely autonomy and consent, data protection, equity, and international mobility from a global fairness perspective. The main conclusion of our analysis is that digital COVID certificates are only acceptable if they meet certain conditions: that they should not process personal data beyond what is strictly necessary for the aimed goals, that equal access to them should be guaranteed, and that they should not restrict people’s autonomy to access places where contagion is unlikely. We conclude that, if such conditions are guaranteed, digital COVID certificates could contribute to mitigating some of the most severe socioeconomic consequences of the pandemic

Re-defining the human embryo: A legal perspective on the creation of embryos in research

The notion of the human embryo is not immutable. Various scientific and technological breakthroughs in reproductive biology have compelled us to revisit the definition of the human embryo during the past 2 decades. Somatic cell nuclear transfer, oocyte haploidisation and, more recently, human stem cell-derived embryo models have challenged this scientific term, which has both ethical and legal repercussions. Here, we offer a legal perspective to identify a universally accepted definition of ‘embryo’ which could help to ease and unify the regulation of such entities in different countries

Bioethical Concerns During the COVID-19 Pandemic: What Did Healthcare Ethics Committees and Institutions State in Spain?.

Objectives: Each new wave of the COVID-19 pandemic invites the possible obligation to prioritize individuals’ access to vital resources, and thereby leads to unresolved and important bioethical concerns. Governments have to make decisions to protect access to the health system with equity. The prioritization criteria during a pandemic are both a clinical and legal-administrative decision with ethical repercussion.We aim to analyse the prioritization protocols used in Spain during the pandemic which, in many cases, have not been updated. Method: We carried out a narrative review of 27 protocols of prioritization proposed by healthcare ethics committees, scientific societies and institutions in Spain for this study. The review evaluated shared aspects and unique differences and proffered a bioethical reflection. Results: The research questions explored patient prioritization, the criteria applied and the relative weight assigned to each criterion. There was a need to use several indicators, being morbidity and mortality scales the most commonly used, followed by facets pertaining to disease severity and functional status. Although age was initially considered in some protocols, it cannot be the sole criterion used when assigning care resources. Conclusions: In COVID-19 pandemic there is a need for a unified set of criteria that guarantees equity and transparency in decision-making processes. Establishing treatment indications is not the aim of such criteria, but instead prioritizing access to care resources. In protocols of prioritization, the principle of efficiency must vary according to the principle of equity and the criteria used to guarantee such equity.post-print204 K

El Principio del Altruismo Procreativo: una visión crítica

El Principio del Altruismo Procreativo ha sido recientemente propuesto por dos bioéticos de particular prestigio, Tom Douglas y Katrien Devolder. De acuerdo con su definición, el principio señala que “si las parejas (o los progenitores únicos) han decidido tener un niño y la selección es posible, tienen razones morales significativas para elegir un niño cuya existencia cabe esperar que contribuirá más (o impedirá menos) al bienestar de otros que cualquier otro niño que pudieran tener”. El objeto del presente texto será analizar críticamente la consistencia de este nuevo principio, así como introducir algunas matizaciones que excluyan sus consecuencias más censurables