CORONERS ACT 1980 - SECT 13 Inquests into deaths or suspected deaths

This legislation has been repealed.

CORONERS ACT 1980 - SECT 13

13 Inquests into deaths or suspected deaths

(1) A coroner has jurisdiction to hold an inquest concerning the death or suspected death of a person if it appears to the coroner that the person has died, or that there is reasonable cause to suspect that the person has died, in any of the following circumstances:

(a) the person died a violent or unnatural death,

(b) the person died a sudden death the cause of which is unknown,

(c) the person died under suspicious or unusual circumstances,

(d) a medical practitioner has not given a certificate as to the cause of death,

(e) the person was not attended by a medical practitioner within the period of 3 months immediately preceding his or her death or suspected death,

(f) the person died while under, or as a result of, or within 24 hours after the administration of, an anaesthetic administered in the course of a medical, surgical or dental operation or procedure or an operation or procedure of a like nature, other than a local anaesthetic administered solely for the purpose of facilitating a procedure for resuscitation from apparent or impending death,

(g) the person died within a year and a day after the date of any accident to which the cause of his or her death or suspected death is or may be attributable,

(h) the person died while in or temporarily absent from a hospital within the meaning of the Mental Health Act 1990 and while the person was a resident at the hospital for the purpose of receiving care, treatment or assistance.

(2) The reference in subsection (1) (d) or (e) to a medical practitioner includes, if it appears to the coroner that the death or suspected death occurred at a place outside New South Wales, a reference to a person entitled under the law in force in that place to act as a medical practitioner.