Dhaka, Monday, 2016-06-03
http://www.thefinancialexpress-bd.com/2016/06/03/32794/Post-mortem-reports-and-coroners
Post-mortem reports and coroners M S Siddiqui The nation is in for a spurt in unnatural deaths. People are dying at places like hospitals. They are killed in police firing and police encounters, and even at some sensitive places. It has also been found that post-mortem reports are done in a way that leads to acquittal in many criminal cases. A judicial inquiry into an unnatural death is known as an inquest, which is a very sensitive inquiry into the cause of a death. The medical investigation is a crucial part of inquest that is done to know the reasons of certain deaths such as sudden death, suicide, homicide, infant death, custodial death and those resulting from use of drugs and poisons, abortion and operational deaths. Unnatural deaths are also caused by medical negligence, industrial accidents, road accidents, domestic accidents, etc. Inquest is a medico-legal autopsy to find the responsible aiding investigation into sudden, suspicious, obscure, unnatural or other types of deaths caused by criminals. The objective of inquest is to know the (1) identification of victims, (2) identification of accused /criminals, (3) identification of suspected weapons, (4) to document the cause and nature of injuries, (5) determine the cause of death and (6) determine the time since the death. There are some different systems of investigation in different countries and the systems of death investigation are Medical Examiner system, Coroner system, Police system and Continental system. In Bangladesh, police inquest and magistrate inquest are there in practice. In the UK, Sri Lanka and some states of the USA the medical examiner inquest is done. The USA follows the Medical Examiner system, the UK adopted the Coroner system and Scotland the procurator fiscal system. In Bangladesh, all unnatural deaths are to be reported at the nearest police stations and a police officer should visit the scene of occurrence for investigation and to arrange post-mortem, if required. The forensic services of the country are delivered partly by doctors of government medical colleges' forensic medicine department and the rest by the civil surgeons of the district. The civil surgeons perform post-mortem by the doctors under him in district hospitals. Medical examiners are certified eligible forensic pathologists. They do the autopsy and correlate the autopsy with the evidence and determine the cause and manner of death and submit the report to the district attorney for further action. The most of the doctors have no forensic qualifications and are not paid extra for this service.
The forensic test is mentioned in the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPc), 1898. The Sec 509A states that in any inquiry, trial or other proceeding under this Code, the report of a post-mortem is required to be used as evidence. If the civil surgeon or any other medical officer who makes the report is dead or is incapable of giving evidence or is beyond the limit of Bangladesh and his attendance cannot be ensured without any delay, expense or inconvenience which, under the circumstances of the case, would be unreasonable, such a report may be used as evidence. As per S-174 of the CrPC, 1898, sub-sec 3,4, modified in 1995, (1) the police officer of a police station or any other empowered police officer conducts an inquest. On receiving the information that a person (a) has committed suicide or (b) has been killed by another or by an animal or by machinery or in an accident or (c) has died under circumstances raising reasonable suspicion that some other persons might have committed an offence, he shall immediately give information thereof to the concerned magistrate and shall proceed to the place where the body of such a deceased person is. There in the presence of two or more respectable inhabitants of the neighbourhood, he shall make an investigation and draw up a report of the apparent cause of death, describing such wounds, fractures, bruises and other marks of injury, as may be found on the body, and stating in what manner or by what weapon or instrument (if any) such marks appear to have been inflicted. In case of re-examining the death body for identification, the nearest civil surgeon or other qualified medical doctors of forensic medicine of government medical colleges will do it. It is a matter of regret that there is no provision of fee or allowances for post-mortem examination and medico-legal work in Bangladesh, which is present in every country of the world. The custodial death is one of the major issues in Bangladesh. As per S-176, (1), when any person dies in the custody of the police, the nearest magistrate empowered to hold inquests shall hold, and, in any other case mentioned in section 174, clauses (a), (b) and (c) of sub-section (1) any magistrate so empowered may hold, an inquiry into the cause of death either instead of, or in addition to, the investigation held by the police-officer. And if he does so, he shall have all the powers for conducting it which he would have in holding an inquiry into an offence. The magistrate holding such an inquiry shall record the evidence taken by him in connection therewith in any of the manners hereinafter prescribed according to the circumstances of the case. This is called magistrate inquest. The coroner inquest is done by government-appointed coroners. They may not be qualified doctors. The coroner, known since 1194 in the UK, is either a lawyer or a doctor employed by the city or county administration to inquire into certain types of death. The cases are reported to him by the police, the public, doctors, local registrars of deaths. Upon receiving a report of death from a doctor the coroner can decide not to pursue further inquiry and request the doctor to issue a death certificate or can direct a
forensic pathologist to conduct an autopsy. If the result of autopsy reveals natural causes, the coroner can issue a death certificate to the family for disposal of the body. Or the coroner can conduct an inquest into the circumstances of death to know where, when and how the person died. It also includes the autopsy by a forensic pathologist. He investigates the following types of death-- (1) Where the deceased was not attended in his last illness by a doctor, (2) Where the deceased was not seen by a doctor either after death or within 14 days prior to death, (3) Where the cause of death is unknown, (4) Where the death appears to be due to industrial disease or poisoning, (5) Where death may have been unnatural or have been caused by violence or neglect or abortion or attended by suspicious circumstances, (6) Where death has occurred during surgical operation or before recovery from anaesthetic. The coroner will make the report and the court will decide the cause of death. An inquest into a death must be held with a jury, if the senior coroner has reason to suspect(a) that the deceased died while in custody or otherwise in state detention, and that either (i) the death was a violent or unnatural one or (ii) the cause of death is unknown, (b) that the death resulted from an act or omission of-(i) a police officer, or (ii) a member of a service police force, in the purported execution of the officer's or member's duty as such, or (c) that the death was caused by a modifiable accident, poisoning or disease. In the USA, this system of inquest was introduced in 1877. It works under public health department and can work independently. It has been gradually developed to the present high-quality investigating agent on unnatural death. The medical examiner should be an experienced physician in the field of Forensic Pathology. The examiner's office is adequately staffed, equipped with modern instruments and he gets adequate funding from the government. This part of the world has some experience of coroner service for forensic investigation. British India had the Coroner Act 1871, under the jurisdiction of which, each of the High Courts of Judicature at Fort William and Bombay there shall be a coroner. Such coroners shall be called respectively the Coroner of Calcutta and the Coroner of Bombay. It had been adapted and modified by the Indian Independence (Adaptation of Central Acts, and Ordinances) Order, 1948 for India but Pakistan did not adapt the law. Bangladesh also did not inherit the coroners law. Now, Bangladeshi lawmakers may consider a law on inquest into unnatural deaths to determine who will investigate and how. We may enact a coroner law in consideration of the present state of investigation. It will help conduct wellregulated and modified inquest with a reform in the existing system.
The writer is a Legal Economist. Email: shah@banglachemical.com