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113 Int'l J. Legal Med. 1 (1999-2000)

handle is hein.journals/injlegame113 and id is 1 raw text is: JnJea  e(99  11:11'pine-elg19

B. Brinkmann
Harmonisation of Medico-Legal Autopsy Rules

Dear Reader,
There are two issues which I would like to address in this
Editorial.
The first issue is the impact factor.
It is a great pleasure for me to announce that the Inter-
national Journal has again been ranked by ISI as the lead-
ing journal in our field (legal medicine) with an impact
factor of 1.812, although this figure has slightly de-
creased. Two things might have puzzled you. Firstly, the
top journal actually listed in our field is new in our cate-
gory and was possibly placed here mistakenly because
there does not seem to exist interactions. Secondly, our
Journal has erroneously been placed only in the pathology
category and ISI have realised this mistake and will of
course correct it.
The second issue concerns the harmonisation of the
medico-legal autopsy rules.
Observations have been made and are still being made
that violations of human rights such as homicides have
occurred and did not become public because (unbiased
and objective) medico-legal investigations were not per-
formed. There have also been many observations that al-
though performed, autopsies were extremely deficient and
therefore inappropriate to elucidate crime.
The major reasons for such omitances have been or
still are:
- Lack of adequately specialised doctors
- Inadequate provision in the respective country guaran-
teeing that suspicious cases are investigated
- Incomplete investigations including sampling and scheme
of further investigations
- Lack of quality control
- Lack of independence of the investigating doctor, i.e.
especially from state authorities
- Lack of an internationally binding protocol.

The Council of Europe has undertaken a great effort in
that these problems have been realised and a well-defined
framework has been established that should prevent such
failures, at least in the future. This began with the adop-
tion of Recommendation 1159 in the year 1991 (Brink-
mann et al. 1994) which was followed by an initiative of
the ECLM (European Council of Legal Medicine) to es-
tablish a harmonised protocol (Newsletter of the Interna-
tional Academy of Legal Medicine 1995, 1996). A com-
mission was instituted by the European Council consist-
ing of experts, lawyers and police representatives. This
commission has elaborated the following protocol which
has now been adopted by the European Council. The pro-
tocol consists of several sections. The scope of the recom-
mendation is of importance because it specifies a diversity
of case groups that must be investigated. Further chapters
are dealing with scene investigation, autopsy physicians,
identification, external and internal examination, autopsy
report and specific procedures in selected case groups.
This protocol is now going to be introduced into the mem-
ber countries of the Council of Europe. It deals with min-
imum requirements and leaves a lot of flexibility relative
to the uniqueness of case work and also relative to future
developments of our science. It is nevertheless new be-
cause countries belonging to the Council of Europe must
in the future guarantee that this recommendation will be
observed and also adequately quality controlled. This
document can also become an inaugural document for le-
gal medicine in such countries where it is not yet, or no
longer practised or where it is not practised on an ade-
quate level.
I welcome the readers of this Journal to make com-
ments and/or discuss. In the following, please find the
complete protocol.
This Recommendation has been adopted by the Commit-
tee of Ministers on 2 February 1999 at the 658th meeting
of the Ministers'Deputies.

B. Brinkmann (®)
Institute of Legal Medicine, University of Munster, Germany

Int J Legal Med (1999) 113 : 1-14

© Springer-Verlag 1999

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