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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.
Death Registration
Tunisia
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Tunisia
Death Registration
Medicolegal Death Investigations
Medicolegal Death Investigations
Medicolegal Death Investigations Authority
What type of medicolegal death investigation (MLDI) system does the country have?
Law Enforcement Led 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)?
Tunisia has a law-enforcement led medicolegal system. Under the Code of Criminal Procedure, the investigating judge has the authority to order expert examinations, including autopsy, in a criminal investigation.
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 .
Decree-regulations for hospitals (Decree No. 81-1634 on internal hospital regulations) require notifying judicial authorities when a hospitalized patient dies under suspicious circumstances. Further, the Code of Criminal Procedure, Article 13, requires judicial police officers to report to the prosecutor “any offence of which they become aware in the exercise of their functions”.
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.
