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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
Colombia
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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.
For unnatural or suspicious deaths, Decree 1260 of 1970, Article 74 assigns the same informants as for any other death: the surviving spouse, closest relatives, people living in the place where the death occurred, the doctor who attended the deceased in their last illness, and the funeral home. If the death occurs in an institution (including hospitals, clinics, barracks, convents, asylums, jails, or other establishments), the director or administrator must also report it. In cases of unknown or unclaimed bodies, the police authority must make the report. Additionally, Article 79 requires judicial authorization before a violent death can be registered, but it does not change the list of informants. The law does not establish any hierarchy among these informants; all are equally permitted and obligated to report an unnatural or suspicious death.
Death Registration
Procedure and Certificates
Evidence
What evidence or documents are required for on-time death registration?
Medical Certificate 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.
Decree 1260 of 1970, Article 76 requires that a death be confirmed for registration through a medical certificate of cause of death, issued under oath by a medical doctor. The certificate must be provided free of charge by the doctor who attended the deceased in their last illness, or, if unavailable, by a forensic doctor, a public health doctor, or any doctor or medical professional practicing in the area. Only when no doctor is available may the death be confirmed through the declaration of two competent witnesses. Family-provided information alone is not sufficient; the law requires either a medical certificate or, in the absence of a doctor, witness declarations.
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?
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 .
Analysis of the legal instruments available to the reviewer did not identify any provisions relevant to this question.
Law Source
What type of medicolegal death investigation (MLDI) system does the country have?
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)?
Analysis of the legal instruments available to the reviewer did not identify any provisions relevant to this question.
Law Source
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?
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.
Analysis of the legal instruments available to the reviewer did not identify any provisions relevant to this question.
Law Source
Cause of Death
Medical Certification
Certifier
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.
Yes. Colombian law clearly assigns responsibility for medically certifying the cause of death (MCCD) in cases of unnatural, suspicious, or legally referred deaths. Decree 786 of 1990, Article 6 requires that a medical-legal autopsy be performed in cases of homicide or suspected homicide, suicide or suspected suicide, accidental or suspected accidental death, and in any situation where the cause of death is unclear. Decree 786 of 1990, Article 9 designates that these autopsies—and therefore the medical certification of cause of death—must be performed by forensic physicians attached to the National Institute of Legal Medicine, by doctors performing compulsory social service, by official government physicians, or by other physicians formally appointed by a competent authority. In these cases, the forensic doctor performing the autopsy is the responsible certifier of the cause of death.
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. Colombia uses the same national Medical Certificate of Cause of Death (MCCD) for all types of deaths—including natural deaths, fetal and infant deaths, and deaths referred to the medical-legal authority (MLDI). The official form adopted by Resolución 435 de 2025 applies nationwide and includes fields for both natural and non-natural deaths, such as the “Probable manner of death” section, as well as dedicated sections for reporting deaths under forensic investigation.
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 and statistics agency
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.
Yes. For deaths referred to the medical-legal system, Resolution 435 of 2025, Article 3 requires the National Institute of Legal Medicine and Forensic Sciences to ensure that deaths resulting from medical-legal autopsies are reported to the Ministry of Health through the national vital events information system called RUAF-ND. Resolution 435 of 2025, Article 4 further provides that the RUAF-ND variables are validated by DANE (the National Administrative Department of Statistics) and the National Civil Registry Office (RNEC) and are used both to produce vital statistics and to issue the “certificate antecedent for civil registration.” (The Colombian MCCD is labeled “antecedent for civil registration” and includes “medical-legal autopsy,” confirming applicability to MLDI cases.)
