Review of the Coroner Service - The Department of Justice and ...

APPENDICESPart III – Sections 17 to 38: InquestsThis part of the Act sets out the law relating topost-mortems and inquests. It determines wherethere is a legal requirement on a coroner to holdan inquest while also indicating circumstanceswhere the coroner may exercise his optionalpower to do so. It also determines when amandatory requirement is placed on variousparties to inform the coroner of certain kinds ofdeaths, with penalties for non-complianceincluded. Provisions are made for circumstanceswhere a coroner or his deputy would bedisqualified from holding a particular inquest.This part of the Act also legislates for a coroner’shandling of certain kinds of inquests and pointsout when he must adjourn an inquest. Undersection 24, the Attorney General is given a power,in his public interest role, to order an inquest incertain circumstances. Certain procedural mattersfor the coroner’s handling of inquests are set outin a number of these sections.Two particularly important sections, 30 & 31 arecontained in this part of the Act. Section 30prohibits the consideration or investigation of anyquestions of civil or criminal liability at an inquestand limits the coroners’ jurisdiction at the inquestto establishing the identity of the deceased andhow, when and where the death occurred. Section31 of the Act, while it allows thatrecommendations of a general nature, designedto prevent further fatalities, can be added on toan inquest verdict, prohibits any censure orexoneration of any person in that verdict or riderto the verdict.Section 33 deals with the handling of postmortemand special examinations and sections 36,37 and 38 deal respectively with the issues of, thesummoning of juries and witnesses to attendinquest, the non attendance of jurors andwitnesses and the coroners powers with respect tothe taking of evidence at inquest.Section Heading Sub-section Notes on Provision17 General duty to Once a coroner is informed of a body in his jurisdictionhold inquestand believes that the death may have occurred in aviolent and unnatural manner, or suddenly and fromunknown causes, or in a place or circumstances whichunder other legislation an inquest is mandatory, hemust hold an inquest.. However, this is subject to theprovisions in section 19 where in certain circumstancesthe holding of a post-mortem eliminates any need tohold an inquest.It is the coroner in whose district the body lies, orcomes to lie, who has jurisdiction for investigating thedeath – unless a coroner sends a body to a mortuaryoutside his district.Sections 21 & 23 of the Act deal with the issue ofjurisdiction in other circumstances such as when abody is irrecoverable or where bodies of two or morepersons whose deaths have, or appear to have, takenplace due to the same occurrence.105