New South Wales Consolidated Acts

CORONERS ACT 1980 - SECT 16

16 Cases where a coroner is not bound to hold an inquest or inquiry

(1) A coroner having jurisdiction to hold an inquest or inquiry may refuse to hold the inquest or inquiry in any case where after being informed in accordance with this Act of the death or suspected death or of the fire or explosion concerned:

(a) the coroner is unable through illness, absence from the place where the coroner holds office or ordinarily acts as coroner or other cause to hold the inquest or inquiry,

(b) the coroner, being a person holding office as a Magistrate or registrar of a Local Court, or duly acting as a registrar of a Local Court, is after being so informed and before holding the inquest or inquiry transferred by the Chief Magistrate of the Local Courts or within the Public Service, as the case may be, from the place where the coroner held or acted in that office when the coroner was so informed to some other place or position, or

(c) the coroner is satisfied that the inquest or inquiry should be held by another coroner or that, except where the coroner has jurisdiction to hold an inquest under section 47, the inquest or inquiry should, on the ground of public convenience, be held by a coroner at some other place than that at which the coroner holds office or ordinarily acts as coroner.

(2) Where a coroner refuses to hold an inquest or inquiry in a case referred to in:

(a) subsection (1) (a) or (c), a police officer, or

(b) subsection (1) (b), the coroner,

may inform any other coroner of the death or suspected death or of the fire or explosion and that other coroner may proceed in all respects as if the firstmentioned coroner had not been informed of the death or suspected death or of the fire or explosion.