General principles of radiation protection
Article 5
Member States shall establish legal requirements and an appropriate regime of regulatory control which, for all exposure situations, reflect a system of radiation protection based on the principles of justification, optimisation and dose limitation: (a) Justification: Decisions introducing a practice shall be justified in the sense that such decisions shall be taken with the intent to ensure that the individual or societal benefit resulting from the practice outweighs the health detriment that it may cause. Decisions introducing or altering an exposure pathway for existing and emergency exposure situations shall be justified in the sense that they should do more good than harm. (b) Optimisation: Radiation protection of individuals subject to public or occupational exposure shall be optimised with the aim of keeping the magnitude of individual doses, the likelihood of exposure and the number of individuals exposed as low as reasonably achievable taking into account the current state of technical knowledge and economic and societal factors. The optimisation of the protection of individuals subject to medical exposure shall apply to the magnitude of individual doses and be consistent with the medical purpose of the exposure, as described in Article 56. This principle shall be applied not only in terms of effective dose but also, where appropriate, in terms of equivalent doses, as a precautionary measure to allow for uncertainties as to health detriment below the threshold for tissue reactions. (c) Dose limitation: In planned exposure situations, the sum of doses to an individual shall not exceed the dose limits laid down for occupational exposure or public exposure. Dose limits shall not apply to medical exposures.