A patient has the exclusive rights to determine what he wants or do not want to be done to his body. In this context, consent becomes a crucial factor that must be present before a doctor is allowed to treat his patient. Under the common law, an adult patient has the legal rights to determine the treatment that he wish to undergo and will subsequently consent to. This must be done when that patient still has the capacity to give consent and it must be given voluntarily without interference by any person. This relates to the rights of an individual patient to make decision autonomously whether to give consent or to refuse to give consent. In view of this legal position, the issue that will be the focus of discussion in this article is whether a patient who has the right to give consent also has the same right to refuse treament in Malaysia. Therefore it is the aim of this article to examine the law relating to consent to medical treatment by an adult patient in Malaysia together with the right of refusal.It is found that in order to
Patient's autonomy to make his own decision is an ethical principle that has been interpreted into the legal concept of consent. Consent to medical treatment is a very fundamental aspect in medical law as it can be regarded as an acknowledgment that a patient has the right to make his own decision on what he wants to be done to his body. In the area of consent, capacity of the patient to make decision plays an important role. Capacity from the context of a patient's age is one of the factors that needs to be considered in deciding whether that particular patient has capacity to give consent or not. In this paper the focus will be on whether children governed by the Malaysian Child Act 2001 have the right to give consent to their medical treatment. In discussing this issue, the writers will look into the general legal position of children to give consent in Malaysia before going into the specific legal provisions pertaining to consent to medical treatment for children governed by the jurisdiction of the Child Act
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