Coroners must send bodies for scans rather than autopsies if religion demands they stay intact, High Court rules
The ruling is a landmark legal victory for the religious rights of Jews and Muslims
Tuesday 28 July 201, THE INDEPENDENT.CO.UK
Coroners must send bodies for scans or blood tests rather than carry
out invasive autopsies if the deceased's religion demands the corpse
must stay intact, the High Court has ruled, in a landmark legal victory
for the religious rights of Jews and Muslims.
The two communities celebrated after a judicial review hearing
established a set of principles coroners must follow where families have
expressed fundamental religious objections to full post-mortems.
Muslims and Jews regard invasive autopsies, defined by one Jewish leader
as “cutting open a body and removing internal organs” as the
desecration of a body in religious law and to be avoided where possible.
Mr
Justice Mitting described several rules that must from now in be
followed - including that there is an “established religious tenet” an
invasive autopsy should be avoided, a “realistic possibility” that a
non-invasive autopsy, such as a CT scan or blood cultures, would
establish cause of death, and that the coroner must still be able to
carry out their legal obligation to establish cause of death to the best
of their ability.
The non-invasive procedure should also be done “without imposing an additional cost burden on the coroner,” the judge added.
Although
two judges had already decided a scan should normally be permitted
where required for religious reasons, the new ruling is the first time
the court has established these principles in law.
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