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Coroners Act 2006

Deaths to be reported and post-mortems - Post-mortems

37: Post-mortem may be performed early in some cases

You could also call this:

"When a post-mortem can be done quickly"

Illustration for Coroners Act 2006

You can have a post-mortem done quickly in some cases. A coroner can ask a pathologist to do a post-mortem right away if they think there is a good reason to do so, under section 31. You might need to do it quickly because any delay could make it harder to find out how someone died. You might also need to do it quickly if the person who died was a baby. Some families need to have the body back quickly because of their cultural or spiritual beliefs. This does not stop the coroner from deciding to do a post-mortem quickly for other good reasons. The coroner's decision is not limited to these reasons.

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View the original legislation for this page at https://legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1986/0120/latest/link.aspx?id=DLM377560.

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Part 2Deaths to be reported and post-mortems
Post-mortems

37Post-mortem may be performed early in some cases

  1. If satisfied that there is good reason to do so, a coroner may, under section 31, direct a pathologist to perform a post-mortem immediately.

  2. Good reason may exist for the purposes of subsection (1)—

  3. because any delay would or may limit the pathologist's ability to determine the cause of death; or
    1. because the person concerned is an infant; or
      1. because people having the ethnic origins, social attitudes or customs, or spiritual beliefs of, or of a member of the immediate family of, the person concerned, customarily require bodies to be available to family members as soon as possible after death.

        1. Subsection (2) does not limit subsection (1).

        Compare
        • 1988 No 111 s 9