Court: Govt doctors' post-mortem examination duty owed to state, not families
PUTRAJAYA: The Court of Appeal has ruled that government doctors carrying out post-mortem examinations do not owe a private duty of care to the family members of the deceased.
In a recent ruling, the Court of Appeal in Malaysia has clarified that government doctors conducting post-mortem examinations are not obligated to provide a private duty of care to the family members of the deceased. The three-judge bench, consisting of Datuk Collin Lawrence Sequerah, Datuk Faizah Jamaludin, and Datin Evrol Mariette Peters, dismissed Joseph Anthony's appeal regarding the handling of his son Sebastian Joseph's post-mortem examination and the subsequent police investigation.
The court emphasized that the legal duty imposed on government medical officers performing such statutory procedures was owed to the state, not individual families. The decision was made unanimously and dismissed Joseph's claims that Dr. Muhamad Arif Mohamad Rasat, the government medical officer who conducted the first post-mortem examination, was not qualified to do so or that there was a conflict of interest due to his personal relationship with Sebastian.
The court also ruled that Sections 330 and 331 of the Criminal Procedure Code did not require a pathologist or pathology expert to perform the examination, only that it be carried out by a government medical officer as prescribed by law.
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