The Coroners Act 2009: Rewriting Coronial Law for New South Wales

Abstract

This thesis examines the changes to New South Wales (‘NSW’) coronial law concerning a coroner’s investigation of death by the Coroners Act 2009 (‘2009 Act’) and the changes in practice that followed. The task of the 2009 Act was to ‘rewrite’ coronial law for NSW; its aim, to provide a legislative framework supportive of coroners in their ‘unique and vital’ role of investigating certain kinds of deaths in the public interest. The 2009 Act was enacted against a background of robust scrutiny of coronial practices. The 1990s and 2000s were marked by a series of controversies involving aspects of coronial practice and the reports of consequent inquiries that questioned the discharge by coroners of their responsibilities and the continuing relevance of coronership. Accompanying, and partly in response to, these challenges, a ‘new critical scholarship’ proposed fresh perspectives for the institution, signalling opportunities for its reinvigoration. Those decades also saw a ‘new wave’ of coronial law reform, with new Coroners Acts enacted in all other Australian States and Territories. These developments resonate — albeit in nascent form — in the innovations of the 2009 Act. The changes to coronial law made by the 2009 Act focused on five areas of law and practice: governance, jurisdiction, post-mortem examinations, case management and coronial recommendations. In examining the changes to the law, the thesis discerns a foundational shift in the policy of NSW coronial legislation in relation to these matters. Drawing on interviews conducted with a range of practitioners in engaged in coronial practice — including coroners, lawyers, pathologists and family support workers — the thesis observes a radical change in these aspects of practice. In assessing these changes, the thesis discerns a significantly altered, but unfinished legislative framework for a series of decisions necessarily made by coroners in their management of a death investigation requiring a more deliberative practice in such determinations. It contends that further legislative change for a more robust and supportive framework necessary to enable emergence of a distinctly coronial way for coroners to perform their tasks — or ‘judgecraft’ — is required.