Article 148: Inquest for unnatural death

Décisions de la Cour suprême interprétant cette section

1. Arrêt de la Cour suprême n° 21697/2556 (2013)

   Section 148 paragraph one requires an inquest where a person has died in the custody of an official, including a soldier held in a military prison. But a court of first instance may conduct the inquest and make the order only in a case within its own jurisdiction, so where the person alleged to have caused the death must be prosecuted in the military court, the civil court has no authority to hold it.

   The deceased was a conscript held in a military prison, and the applicant asked the civil court to inquire and make an inquest order. The Supreme Court held that although the death fell within Section 148, the inquiry and the order are a special procedure under Section 150 paragraphs five and eleven in which a court may take part only where the case is within its jurisdiction. Since the person alleged to have caused the death had to be prosecuted in the military court, the civil court had no authority, and the refusal of the application was upheld.

2. Arrêt n° 2410/2530 de la Cour suprême (1987)

   The inquest under section 148 is part of the inquiry official's evidence-gathering, so even without an inquest the prosecutor may still have power to prosecute where the investigation was otherwise lawful.

   Answering the defence that the prosecutor lacked power to prosecute because no inquest was held, the court held the inquest is part of the investigative evidence-gathering under section 148, so where the investigation was otherwise lawful, the absence of an inquest did not deprive the prosecutor of power to prosecute.

Curated decisions with case numbers verified against the Supreme Court database. English renderings are the firm's editorial translation for study.