The role of the coroner
March 26, 2007
In Jamaica, a coroner is a resident magistrate, appointed under the Coroner's Act, to conduct investigations into the deaths of persons which occur within his or her jurisdiction, where there is reasonable cause to suspect that the deaths are violent or unnatural.
Police Commissioner Lucius Thomas announced on Friday that a coroner's inquest is to be held into last week Sunday's mystery death of Bob Woolmer, the Pakistan cricket team coach.
Woolmer, 58, died at the University Hospital of the West Indies, Mona, from what the police said was asphyxia caused by manual strangulation when he was attacked in his hotel room at the Jamaica Pegasus hotel, New Kingston.
He was found unconscious on the floor of his room.
The fact that the authorities have decided to hold an inquest into the death indicates that thereis uncertainty as to who committed the murder.
Commissioner Thomas is reported to have ordered that the inquest be held "as soon as possible". The Coroner's Act does not specify within what time frame a coroner's inquest should be held, but it does indicate that it should be done with dispatch....
Speedy inquest
The Woolmer inquest could be one of the few instances in which a coroner's inquest has been held reasonably quickly in keeping with the law in Jamaica, as there have been instances, especially in the case of fatal shootings by the police, where they have taken years to be held, if they were held at all.
A jury of not less than five persons, directed by the Coroner for Kingston, is to hear evidence and determine how, when and where Mr. Woolmer came by his death and determine who is criminally responsible, the police having already satisfied them-selves after an autopsy, that Mr. Woolmer was murdered.
The coroner also ordered that Mr. Woolmer's body remain within this jurisdiction until the inquest has been completed. Section 18 of the Coroner's Act states: "It shall not be necessary upon any inquest for the coroner or the jury to view the body, but this provision shall not preclude the coroner from requiring the exhumation of the body for the purpose of viewing and further examining the same, if in his opinion it is expedient so to do."
Author: Barbara Gayle
Source: Jamaica Gleaner
