New Zealand Legislation: Acts
Acts are laws made by Parliament
The chief coroner's main function is to help to ensure the integrity and effectiveness of the coronial system provided for by this Act, and, in order to carry out his or her main function, the chief coroner has the following additional functions:
(a) to help to ensure coroners' investigations are conducted in an orderly and expeditious way by overseeing them, and by facilitating the provision and co-ordination of support services and of necessary or desirable cultural, legal, medical, or other specialist advice:
(b) to advise the responsible department on, and help it to make arrangements to meet, coroners' needs for information and for initial and continuing professional education and training:
(c) to designate coroners (and replacement designated coroners) to receive reports of, and perform every other part of the coroner's role in relation to, deaths in a particular area or that fall into another specified class:
(d) to maintain a list of names of pathologists who are willing to perform post-mortems:
(e) to designate other coroners to conduct inquiries where there is some good reason why the coroners to whom the deaths have been reported should not conduct them:
(f) to authorise coroners to open and conduct inquiries or further inquiries required by orders under sections 95 to 97, and to serve those orders on those coroners:
(g) to advise the Minister on the numbers and locations of relief coroners, and to authorise them to act in the place of, or help, coroners:
(h) to help to inform and achieve consistency in coronial decision-making and other coronial conduct by issuing practice notes:
(i) to set up and maintain a register, open for public inspection at all reasonable times, of summaries of coroners' specified recommendations or comments (as defined in section 9):
(j) to perform the functions of a Head of Bench under the Judicial Conduct Commissioner and Judicial Conduct Panel Act 2004 in relation to the exercise by coroners (except for those who are District Court Judges) of the judicial authority conferred on them by this Act:
(k) to provide coroners and others with general information and advice to help planning and preparation for—
(i) an emergency (as defined in the Civil Defence Emergency Management Act 2002); and
(ii) response and recovery in the event of an emergency (as so defined):
(l) to help to avoid unnecessary duplication and expedite investigation of deaths by liaison, and encouragement of co-ordination (for example, through development of protocols), with other investigating authorities and other official bodies or statutory officers:
(m) to help, by education, publicity, and liaison with the public, to promote understanding of, and co-operation with, the coronial system provided for by this Act:
(n) any other additional function conferred or imposed by any other enactment.