Legal Regulation of the Contract to Exploit a License to Practice the Profession: Pharmacy as a Model

Abstract

The pharmacist profession is linked to the health and life of the individual. Therefore, it can only be practised by a specialized pharmacist who knows the drug's properties, interactions, and effects. Pharmacists are subject to their laws when practising the profession and adhere to behavioural and ethical rules to avoid deviating from prohibited practices that may conflict with the legal controls of the profession and its ethics.

However, the reality of life and various economic and social circumstances have produced a dangerous phenomenon: some pharmacists licensed to practice the profession agree with others who are not pharmacists to use their professional licenses to open or purchase pharmacies in a way that circumvents the law and the strict conditions for practising the profession and licensing pharmacies.

This agreement is a contract between the two parties. Its subject is the exploitation of the professional license, which calls for finding the appropriate legal adaptation for this contract due to its absence of legal regulation and the existence of legislative and jurisprudential shortcomings in dealing with this type of contract.

The conclusion was that this contract is an unnamed contract and has a special nature, which requires stating the effects resulting from it and determining the obligations and rights of its parties and the extent of their responsibility if they violate the legal rules related to practising the pharmacy profession with stating the aspects of the contract's termination and expiry.

The researcher presented several recommendations. The most important is the necessity of explicitly stating in the Jordanian Drug and Pharmacy Law that the licensed pharmacist is prohibited from lending his license to others and increasing the penalty for the violating pharmacist, similar to what some Arab legislations have done.