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Written by: Commentary Editing Room
2021-05-27 06:40
Last update date: 2021-05-27 06:40
On Tuesday (25th), the jury of the Coroner's Court concluded that Liang Lingjie fell and died of misfortune in June of the previous year. The case arrived at the verdict on the day of the case and the processing time was nearly two years.
Coroner Gao Weixiong said that it took longer to convene the Coroner's Court when it appeared, and that the cause of the death included an increase in the number of deaths and the number of coroners was too small.
Senior officials emphasized that the number of deaths in Hong Kong is increasing every year. There are only two permanent coroners for the population of 7.5 million, which is far lower than that of the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand. It is reported that the number of deaths in Hong Kong has increased by 10% every year.
However, referring to the past statistics of government departments and judicial institutions, the above remarks seem to be difficult to explain the reasons for the backlog of Coroner's Court cases.
The increase in deaths does not necessarily lead to a backlog of cases
Between 2007 and 2020, the number of registered deaths in Hong Kong increased from 39,963 to 50,653, an increase of more than one quarter. However, not all cases involved the Coroner's Court, because only suicide, crime or suspected crime caused death, etc. Only 20 types of cases are required to be reported, and the number of related cases has remained around 10,000 during this period.
Not all of these reported cases require follow-up investigation or inquiry procedures.
According to the current practice, the magistrate can decide whether an in-depth investigation is required after receiving a reported case, and the police will follow up if necessary; and after receiving the police investigation result, the magistrate can then decide whether to hold a court hearing and whether it should be There is a jury.
Between 2008 and 2013, the number of cases requiring further investigations and hearings was 1,246 and 172 per year on average. However, between 2014 and 2019, the two numbers had fallen to 951 and 122 respectively. Therefore, the Coroner's Court worked During this period, the pressure did not increase but decreased.
Increased manpower does not help improve waiting time
The Judiciary has set an average waiting time target of 42 days for each coroner case, which the Coroner's Court has been unable to achieve since 2017.
From 2017 to 2019, the actual waiting time for each case in each year was 79 days, 65 days and 61 days, which was 40% to 80% longer than the target time.
In the past three years, the Coroner's Court has to deal with a total of 415 cases, but from 2009 to 2011, there were clearly more 549 cases. How can the waiting time continue to meet the standard at that time?
In Hong Kong, both the Coroner's Court and the High Court have a jury system.
(Government Picture)
More importantly, in the special meeting of the Finance Committee of the Legislative Council in April the previous year to review the expenditure estimates for the fiscal year 2019-2020, it was stated that “In order to relieve the heavy workload, the Judiciary has increased the number of magistrates to The Coroner's Court", the coroner's court support staff has been expanded since 2016-2017. As a result, the number of cases has decreased and the number of staff has increased, and the results have further deteriorated to 70 days due to the impact of the new crown epidemic last year. .
In recent years, it is true that the time and backlog of death inquiries have been prolonged. However, compared with external factors such as blaming the increase in the number of deaths, or just trying to increase the number of coroners and supporting staff, members of the judiciary obviously have to review internal factors and improve their work Efficiency, speed up the implementation of electronic file management, add remote hearings, and introduce related technologies to courts at all levels.
The Coroner's Court in Victoria, Australia has conducted online hearings in response to the epidemic, and Hong Kong can emulate it.
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