2 Patient rights – as well as the rights of health professionals – have thus gained new prominence within the framework of basic human rights. 5. The legal interests at stake and patient rights lie at the foundation of medical professional liability, which combines both the principles and rules of professional ethics governing medical practice and the technical rules to be observed by health practitioners as the main elements. These become increasingly more developed and strict, hand in hand with the progress of science and technology. The liability of health professionals rests on both pillars. 6. Moreover, the provision of life and humane treatment protection service in the area of health care – with the resulting allocation of duties and claiming for rights – has become remarkably widespread in today’s society through the construction and operation of “national health systems.” These systems comprise multiple agents for the service and the relevant obligations: private and public providers, companies and doctors, health practitioners, supply vendors, and so on. We are thus dealing with a notoriously large network of rights and duties that is to be managed by the modern State, even where the State is no longer in charge of directly providing the service; such network gives rise to specific duties that are becoming increasingly more complex and growing in number, and relate to the obligations to respect and guarantee the basic rights that are modernized in this context: to life and humane treatment. C) Health care legislation. Medical file. 7. It is of the utmost importance, both for a smooth operation of the health services and for the determination of responsibility possibly arising from medical care in various fields - in the civil, administrative, criminal, labor spheres--, to have extensive, sufficient regulations that are up to today’s circumstances and allow the prevention of problems and the timely, full resolution of problems arising in this area. 8. National legislation on health protection, for all the areas I mentioned above, is already abundant, as is starting to be the case with international regulations as well –whether binding or indicative in nature. Such regulations usually stem from two kinds of constitutional provisions: on the one hand, there are those establishing the right to health protection, viewed as a basic human right; on the other, there are those allocating, at the State level, the authority and functions that lead to such protection, viewed as an issue of public interest subject to State protection. 9. In the instant case, this issue came up in connection with access to the patient’s medical record or file. It is worth noting the importance, for multiple purposes, of such comprehensive and changing record of the patient’s condition and treatment, a record that often proves to be lacking or insufficient to serve its intended purpose. Hence the various provisions and recommendations regarding medical files: existence, characteristics, implications, and preservation. 10. It is also worth insisting –as inferred from the analysis of the instant case– on the need for domestic legislation to include specific provisions clarifying any disquieting questions or ruling out unacceptable solutions regarding the disclosure of the data contained in the medical life, both during the life of the patient –whose understanding and decision-making abilities might be impaired or non-existent– and subsequently to the patient’s passing.