The criminal-law assessment of a medical error in Georgia rests on two norms of the Criminal Code — Articles 116 and 124. The outcome is decisive: if the patient died, the assessment proceeds under Article 116 — causing death by negligence; if the health suffered less serious or serious damage — under Article 124. The central feature of both norms is the same: negligence.
This page is intended for the defense of charges connected with medical practice: here you will find the exact elements of both articles, all sanctions by part, and the directions in which a lawyer analyzes cases of this category. Every figure is taken solely from the normative text of these two articles.
Article 116: causing death by negligence
The outcome of the case is the patient’s death. The article is divided into two parts:
- Part 1 — causing death by negligence: house arrest for a term from six months to two years, or imprisonment for a term from two to four years;
- Part 2 — the same act committed against two or more persons: imprisonment for a term from three to five years.
In other words, the sanction directly depends on the number of victims: with one patient, house arrest is possible; with two or more — only imprisonment from three to five years. Comparing the two parts helps the defense plan: if the charge is built on two patients and the elements fail for one of them — for example, causation is not proven — the case returns from Part 2 to Part 1 and the punishment frame substantially narrows. This is why every episode must be analyzed separately.
Article 124: damage to health by negligence
Where the outcome is less serious or serious damage to the patient’s health, Article 124 applies: less serious or serious damage to health by negligence — punishable by a fine or corrective labor for a term of up to two years. This article is not divided into separate parts, and its sanction does not include imprisonment. This detail is practically important: where the outcome is damage to health rather than death, the penalty is exhausted by a fine or corrective labor. The boundary between the two articles — death or damage to health — is thus directly reflected in the person’s liberty.
What decides which article applies
The elements of both norms build liability in the same way: the act must be committed by negligence, and a concrete outcome must be established as its result — death or the corresponding degree of damage to health. The method of determining the degree of damage is not set out in the text of these articles — it is done under other rules and qualified assessment, which is a significant and disputed part of the case. A peculiarity of medical cases is that many factors affect the patient’s condition: the nature of the disease, its course, the timeliness of the visit, the decisions of other persons. Therefore the question — whether precisely the doctor’s act caused the outcome — always requires separate analysis, and its answer affects the entire construction of the case. In parallel, the defense traces the chronology of the patient’s route through the medical institutions: where the treatment began, what was recorded at each stage, and where the events on which the charge rests are documented — a map that in many cases changes the reading of the whole story.
How the defense works on medical cases
Cases of medical error belong among the most difficult evidentiary cases. The defense usually examines: the causation between the medical act and the outcome — death or damage is often multifactorial; the negligence feature — whether the doctor’s act corresponded to the situation in which he worked and whether he had a real opportunity to act otherwise; and the number of victims — which part of Article 116 fits the case. Medical documentation and expert assessments are the central material here.
It is also relevant that medical practice is governed by special foundations defined outside the text of these articles — checking their observance is a necessary part of the case. The procedural rules — who is appointed as an expert, how evidence is built — are determined by other norms of criminal procedure. The defense’s task is a professional reading of these materials: the chronology recorded in the medical documentation, prescriptions and interventions can often be read in the opposite direction — to the extent that the initial condition and circumstances are fully reflected. Together with qualified assessments, the lawyer verifies whether the logic of the charge is consistent with the documents.
Consultation at Legal.ge
A charge of medical error reaches into a physician’s professional fate, which is why early and competent involvement of a lawyer is especially important here. A consultation is useful at the earliest stage — before the case is formally constructed: at that time it is still possible to influence under which article and part the case goes to court. Send us the available materials — we will assess them against the elements of both articles, confidentially and responsibly.