| The coroner first appeared in 1194, initially not to investigate the cause of death, but to limit the powers of the local sheriff. Meanwhile, in a sense, the coroner is taken as a "tax collector" to forfeiture the property of the deceased for the Crown. With the rise of magistrates, the status of the coroner declined, and the powers of the coroner became less. But investigating death became the most common jurisdiction of a coroner. At the time of their investigation, with the original medical and legal knowledge, the coroner would make a ruling to ascertain the fact of death. Therefore, in one sense, the coroners already unknowingly became investigation experts on the cause of death. Over time, these people who in charge of investigating death were known as a coroner. So a special death investigation system was formed in England and Wales.County coroners were elected before 1888, in which the vast majority of the coroners were lawyers, the minority of coroners were doctors. From the 19 th century, due to the development of medicine, more and more people realized the importance of medical knowledge in the coronial system. So there are some people, who think that a candidate for the coroner should have received medical education. Thomas Wakley, by Lancet journal established by himself, launched a campaign for the medical coroner. The campaign lasted for nearly a hundred years, and obtained a partial victory in 1926. The death registration system also impacted the coroner’s medical system. Britain established nationwide births and deaths registration system in 1836. Because the coroner was responsible for investigating death, the registration law correspondingly imposed some obligations on the coroner. In order to obtain precise statistical data of death, the General Register Office always urged coroners to give a precise pathological cause of death. However, the role coroner has long been considered to detect and prevent crime. the coroner cared more about whether the deceased involved in crime than pathological cause of death of the deceased. Therefore, the General Register Office always urged those who received medical education to hold the office of coroner. Due to more railways and widespread using of the telegraph, the newspaper spread quicker and more widely. The inquest cases were often the focus incidents, which always drew attention of newspapers. The inquest cases sometimes exposed the problems in the coronial system, such as the dual proceedings. Pressure of public opinion resulted from the inquest cases indirectly prompted the British government to reform coronial system.London County Council, established in 1889, played a significant part in promoting the reform of coronial system. London County Council, in order to merger the coroner into bureaucratic system, was intended to abolish franchise coroner’s districts and amalgamated some coroner’s districts, so the workload within a coroner’s district can support a full-time coroner. However, the London County Council found it difficult to solve this seemingly simple problem, because many central authorities confirmed that they had no power to make these changes. Only the Parliament can achieve these changes by amending the law. Therefore, London County Council kept contacting with the Home Office and Lord Chancellor, and urged them to actively promote the reform of the coronial system. In 1902, the London County Council appointed John Troutbeck as South West London coroner. John Troutbeck acted uniquely and didn’t follow the traditional practices. As soon as taking the office, John Troutbeck produced a dispute with general practitioners. In June 1908, he held an inquest on a patient who died in surgical operation, which contradicted to the practice of inquest, which arouse the dispute between the surgeon Victor Horsley and John Troutbeck. All these controversy in effect resulted from the development of medicine. Due to rapid development of medicine, doctors were divided into general practitioners and medical specialists. But the law relating to the coroner’s system came in force nearly a hundred years ago, when there was no medical expert. The obsolete law was unable to meet the needs of society and needed to be amended. In this context, the British Home Office appointed a department committee to inquire into the law relating to coroners and coroners inquests, in order to modify Coroners Act. The inquiry of the department committee was fairly comprehensive and broad, after absorbing multi-parties views, and ended with a recommendation, which laid the foundation of the Coroners Act 1926(Amendment).The First World War broke out in 1914, the increasing of army casualties aroused domestic labor tension, which forced the British government in early 1917 to put forward a number of emergency measures. Parliament passed a bill, providing that the judge shall temporarily suspend the grand jury in the criminal proceedings. Not long after that, the Parliament then decided to reduce the size of coroner’s juries. Manpower shortage problem continued, the British government in 1918 introduced more bills to restrict the use of the jury. For example, limiting the use of juries in some civil cases, raising the maximum age for jury service, and giving the coroners the discretion to hold inquests without a jury. After Armistice, those wartime laws relating to the Coroner continued to effect. World War I provided an opportunity of experiment for reviewing the reform of coronial system. Home Office realized that the powers granted to coroners under emergency measures worked very successful, and the experiment proved that the reform could save a lot of money. Therefore this experiment was quite successful.There existed dual proceedings between the coroner’s court and magistrate’s court. Witnesses may be obliged to simultaneously appear at the coroner’s court and magistrate’s courts, which was unrealistic. Meanwhile, the coroner’s court is completely open to public, so newspapers reported on the coroner cases, which may result in an adverse effect on the trial of the subsequent criminal case. The most important cases associated with the reform of coronial system was Armstrong case in 1922, which exposed the dual proceedings and even mentioned in Parliament debates. During the inquest on the victim in Armstrong case, the coroner in charge of the case provided a resolution to the dual proceedings, that is to adjourn the coroner’s court until the end of the criminal procedure. The trial judge of Armstrong case then become a senior House of Lords, and supported this solution in Parliament. After the efforts of the Home Office, the Coroner(Amendment) Act was passed in Parliament in 1926.The reform of coronial system featured in medicalization. The Act had restricted the office to practitioners of law or medicine of not less than five year’s standing. Coroner may decide to make an autopsy of the deceased without a jury. Coroner’s jury was not obliged under the Act to view the body, because the jurors often were layman in medicine and the viewing of bodies did not help the inquest jury to confirm the cause of death, sometimes had adverse effect to confirm the cause of death. In modern murder case, the cause of the death could draw from the naked eye. The view of body by the inquest jury, as a legacy of medieval legal requirement, had been unable to meet the modern society. The solution to dual proceedings which existed for centuries came from coroners’ practices. This solution of adjourning coroner’s court would further reduce the judicial nature of the coronial system. In order to better manage the coroner, the Act granted to Lord Chancellor the power to make rules of practice and procedure, abolished the franchise coroner, and authorized the government to formate and alter the coroner’s districts. All said amendments were intended to gradually merger the coroner into a full-time government servants. These reforms met the demands of different groups, and could not form a clear shared value. Coronial system and death registration system interacted with each other, the coronial system was primarily to detect and prevent crime, and gradually moved to multi-values system including the management of death. |
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