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Disclaimer / Limitations
This country’s legal measures were reviewed by our legal staff in consultation with in-country lawyers and/or CRVS legal experts. All efforts were made to ensure the accuracy of the legal analysis, however, if you consider there to be any discrepancies or if there have been changes in the law of the country since our staff last updated the legal analysis, we welcome any additional information or insights. Please contact us via this form.
Medicolegal Death Investigation
Bolivia
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Death Registration
Declaration and Notification
Informants
Who is designated as the primary informant for unnatural or suspicious deaths?
Other
Recommended Practice based on International Guidelines
To ensure that unnatural and suspicious deaths are registered, legislation should clearly specify who is responsible for reporting the death to the registrar. The primary informant for an unnatural or suspicious death should be an officer of the mediolegal system, regardless of whether the death occurred with or without medical supervision.
Such officers may include: coroners, medical examiners, police or other medicolegal officers. Responsibility should not be placed on the family, as that may result in the death not being declared to the registrar.
According to Article 48 of Supreme Decree No. 24247 of March 7, 1999, when a body is found and it is impossible to identify it, the death is registered upon a judicial order, and in the absence of a judge, with authorization from the administrative, military, or ecclesiastical authority. This provision implies that, in cases of unnatural or suspicious deaths, the judge is the primary informant responsible for authorizing the registration, while the administrative, military, or ecclesiastical authority assumes this role when there is no judge in the jurisdiction. The law, however, does not establish a broader medicolegal framework on informants.
Death Registration
Procedure and Certificates
Evidence
What evidence or documents are required for on-time death registration?
Medical Certifcate of Cause of Death
Recommended Practice based on International Guidelines
Registrars should require proof as to the veracity of the information to be registered. Proof or evidence required for registration must be sufficiently stringent to provide assurance of the accuracy of the information without being so burdensome as to discourage or prevent registration. Documentary evidence is always preferred. Ideally all deaths will have an accurate, detailed medical certificate of cause of death (MCCD). However, in many contexts this will not be possilbe. Lack of MCCD should not prevent death registration; evidence of fact of death should be sufficient to register death. Evidence of fact of death could be a notification of death or other similar document, Witness Statement or other similar evidence.
A cause of death certificate is required to register death.
In places where there is no medical professional under whose supervision the decedent died, the Registrar shall, before registering the death, ascertain that death has occurred.
When a corpse is found and it is impossible to identify it, the death shall be registered by court order and, where there is no judge, by authorization of the administrative, military, or ecclesiastical authority.
Death Registration
Medicolegal Death Investigations
Medicolegal Death Investigations Authority
Does the law clearly state what types of cases must be referred to the MLDI authority and is this in accordance with international guidance?
Yes
Recommended Practice based on International Guidelines
Deaths due to known or suspected unnatural or external causes should be referred to the Medicolegal Death Investigation (MLDI) authority. This includes deaths due to violence, injury, self-harm, suspicious causes, and sudden, unexplained or unexpected deaths. The types of cases that must be report to the MLDI system are usually contained in a code of criminal procedure, rather than in the civil registration law .
In cases where the attending physician has well-founded doubts about the cause of a person’s death, the physician is required to notify the competent authority rather than issue a medical death certificate. Additionally, when there is suspicion that the death may have resulted from an accident, homicide, suicide, or any other unnatural circumstance, the law mandates that the case be referred to the Medicolegal Death Investigation authority (Instituto de Investigaciones Forenses – IDIF) for examination and certification. This ensures that all deaths with potential legal implications are subject to forensic investigation before registration.
What type of medicolegal death investigation (MLDI) system does the country have?
Hybrid Coroner/Medical Examiner System
Recommended Practice based on International Guidelines
MLDI systems can be categorized into four types: law enforcement-led systems, coroner systems, medical examiner systems, and coroner/medical examiner hybrid systems. There is no best practice. All four types of systems are capable of providing quality information to the 5 MDLI questions: 1) Who died (i.e., what was the person’s name, if known)? 2) When did the death occur? 3) Where did the death occur? 4) What was the cause of death? and 5) What was the manner of death (e.g., natural, accident, suicide, homicide, or undetermined)?
Death Registration
Medicolegal Death Investigations
Death in custody
Does the law mandate that law enforcement and/or heads of custodial institutions report all deaths in custody to the medicolegal death investigation authority?
No
Recommended Practice based on International Guidelines
All deaths in custody should be viewed as potentially unlawful or suspicious deaths and
should therefore be referred to the medical-legal authorities. “Deaths in custody” refers to those deaths in which the circumstances of the death place the decedent in either direct or indirect contact with law enforcement in such settings as incarceration, apprehension and pursuit. For deaths that occur in a detention facility, the head of the detention facility or the head of health services within the detention facility should initiate the process of notifying the medical-legal authorities. For deaths that occur during pursuit or apprehension, the police chief should refer the death to the medical-legal authorities.
Does the law clearly state who is responsible for medically certifying cause of death when deaths are unnatural or suspicious, or otherwise referred to the MLDI authority?
Yes
Recommended Practice based on International Guidelines
Deaths due to unnatural causes (such as accident, self-harm or violence); man-made or natural disasters; suspicious causes, or where CoD cannot be determined by the attending physician should be referred to the Medicolegal Death Investigation (MLDI) authority for medical certification of cause of death. The certifier of cause of death should be the forensic physician working with the MLDI authority who conducted the post-mortem examination on the deceased.
Article 50 of the Supreme Decree No. 24247 of 1999 states that in cases of suspicious or unnatural deaths, the death must be certified by a forensics doctor after a necropsy or autopsy.
Additionally, article 155 of the Code of Ethics and Medical Deonthology states that in cases in which the medical professional is in doubt about the causes of death, they should order an autopsy.
Cause of Death
Medical Certification
Medical Certificate of Cause of Death Form
Is the same form used for all types of deaths, including natural deaths and deaths referred to MLDI?
Yes
Recommended Practice based on International Guidelines
It is recommended practice to use the same MCCD form which should be WHO MCCD compliant) for all types of deaths, including natural and unnatural deaths (and fetal deaths).
Yes. Bolivia uses a single standardized Medical Certificate of Cause of Death for all deaths, including natural and medicolegal cases. The form includes a specific section on “manner, mechanism, and place of the event,” completed only for violent, accidental, or suspicious deaths, allowing classification such as accident, homicide, or suicide. It also includes a field on the “procedure performed,” indicating whether death was determined clinically or through medicolegal autopsy. The same form applies to all deaths, with dedicated sections for medicolegal cases.
Cause of Death
Transmission of Cause of Death Data
Transmission of Cause of Death Data
For a death referred to the MLDI system, does the law specify how cause of death information is transmitted to the civil registrar and/or statistics agency?
Yes for transmission of information to civil registrar
Recommended Practice based on International Guidelines
The law should designate who is responsible for submitting the MCCD or cause of death data to the civil registration authority and/or the national statistics agency in cases of deaths investigated by the MLDI system. Responsibility may be place on the forensic physician that certified the cause of death or an official within the MLDI system, such as the coroner, medical examiner, or police officer. In some countries, this person will submit the MCCD or cause of death information to the civil registration agency, which in turn will submit COD data to the national statistics agency. In other countries, this person will submit the MCCD or cause of death data directly to the national statistics agency. The MCCD should not be given to the family as a means of transmission.
In cases of medicolegal deaths, the Institute of Forensic Investigations (Instituto de Investigaciones Forenses – IDIF) issues the official Medical Certificate of Cause of Death (MCCD). The certificate is then delivered to the family member or other legally authorized representative of the deceased, who must present it to the Civil Registry Office to register the death. The IDIF currently does not share or cross-reference information with the National Health Information and Epidemiological Surveillance System (Sistema Nacional de Información en Salud – Vigilancia Epidemiológica, SNIS-VE) of the Ministry of Health, meaning that these deaths are not systematically included in national health and mortality statistics.
