Medico-Legal Services to the Public
The department provides specialist judicial medical officer services to the public two days per week (Monday and Tuesday) and every other weekend through the North Colombo Teaching Hospital. The services include examinations of the living and the dead for judicial purposes where our aim is to assist the judiciary as an independent impartial expert witness while providing in-service training to undergraduates and postgraduates.
The services include
- Medico-legal examinations and reporting of sudden unexpected or unnatural (accidents, suicides and homicides) deaths by performing autopsies and other relevant examinations.
- Assisting police and the Judiciary in crime scene investigations and reconstructions of events
- Conduction of exhumations and examination and reporting of exhumed remains
- Assist the judiciary in investigations of deaths in custody
- Assist police and the Judiciary in identification of dead in natural and unnatural disasters
- Examination and reporting of skeletal remains
- Perform medico-legal examinations of victims of assault and accidents
- Examination and reporting of cases of child abuse
- Examination and reporting of cases of sexual violence of children and adults
- Examination and reporting on cases of drunkenness
- Examination and reporting of persons in custody
- Examination and reporting of human rights violence
- Examine persons for age estimations
- Examine and reports on workmen compensations
- Expert advice to Judiciary and Attorney General's Department when required
