Local doctors not keen on pathology
which is inadequate to meet the current trends in the investigations of violent or unnatural deaths.
Other pieces of legislature include Anatomic Donations and Post-mortem Examinations Act, Burials and Cremations Act, Exhumations Act and the Births and Deaths Registration Act.
The Coroner’s Office draft bill seeks to consolidate all these activities that are thrown in the various pieces of legislation into one piece of legislation.
The Director of Pathology Services in the Ministry of Health and Child Care, Dr Maxwell Mareza Hove, is the country’s only forensic pathologist.
He explained why doctors are not keen on taking up forensic pathology as a career in Zimbabwe: “The challenges that we have been facing because of the lack of this legal framework is that we don’t have a functional forensic services in the country.
“Actually, we don’t have forensic experts, for example forensic pathologists,” said Dr Hove.
The country has been outsourcing expatriates from other countries like India, Cuba and Tanzania.
He said despite the fact that the country has brilliant doctors, they have not chosen forensic pathology as a career because of the legal framework/system which is adversarial in nature as opposed to it being inquisitorial, meaning that when forensic pathologists go to court they will be going for a fight or a war.
Explained Dr Hove: “Doctors are not trained to fight and they don’t have the nature to fight, their job requires them to be tender. Then suddenly in a forensic investigation they are called to fight and somebody is waiting to smash/fight them in court.”
For example, when somebody is murdered or is alleged to have been murdered, a forensic pathologist has to come up with evidence which will be taken to court as evidence. The forensic pathologists are then summoned to court where they face the accused.
It is on the basis of this pathologist’s evidence that the accused might be sentenced to death or not and the accused will have to fight back for his/her innocence. The defence lawyer might attack the pathologist for his competency, integ- rity and professionalism. And since court procedures are public, doctors are not willing to sacrifice their hard-earned careers in court.
The coroner comes in between the experts and the courts — he/she will then present the evidence in court and at the same time defend it.
Zimbabwe does not have a coroner, it relies on magistrates who are appointed and are never part of the investigation process. They rely on the Inquest Act, which, according to experts, is inadequate and outdated.
For instance, the Inquest Act only comes after all the investigations to try and put all the findings after. An autopsy (post-mortem) report is actually an affidavit under the Criminal Procedure and Evidence Act.
The actual performance of the autopsy examinations is governed by another piece of legislation called Anatomic Donations and Post-mortem Examinations Act. The Coroners’ Office will put all these pieces of law concerning forensic pathology under one roof and legislation.
Chief Law Officer in the Ministry of Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs, Mr Charles Paul Manhiri, said it was important to have an independent and impartial forensic investigation board.
“We are looking at Section 69 of the Constitution which provides for a fair trial of any accused person. By fair trial, it, therefore, means the nature of evidence given should be sufficient,” said Mr Manhiri.