How Can Be Increased the Accessibility and Effectiveness of Advance Directives?

Abstract

One or more forms of advance directives are regulated in the majority of legal systems. However, people generally do not create advance directives. The main reason for this problem is that people do not have enough information about this legal institution, and it is too difficult or expensive to create one. Furthermore, it is also questionable if someone has an advance directive whether it will be able to achieve the aimed legal effect. Similarly, the enforcement of the advance directives could be problematic, especially if litigation is required to enforce these wills. The situation of advance directives is more or less the same in the majority of legal systems. Our aim is to show that these problems could be solved using the already existing, e.g. in Austria or Hungary, digital health databases and by introducing a non-litigation legal dispute framework.