The European Council of Legal and Forensic Medicine: its role and work in progressing harmonised standards and recommendations in Forensic and Legal Medicine investigation procedures, training and teaching through pursuit of internationally agreed and peer-reviewed published guidelines

Specialists and Practitioners in Forensic Medicine and Pathology have onerous duties and obligations in the examination of both the dead and living victims of alleged criminal assault and injury and in the examination of the alleged perpetrators of criminal actions. Forensic physicians and pathologists work in close collaboration with scientific colleagues and law enforcement agencies and present their independent and unbiased findings to the criminal, civil and coronial courts to assist in the administration of justice. Approved and established forensic standards for reporting and certifying investigations and conclusions are core prerequisites for the maintenance of evidential credibility and scrutiny and of justice. Judges, Investigating Magistrates, Coroners and Prosecution and Defence Lawyers as well as Government Departments of Justice and Health are recipients of such expert reports and testimony in framing their respective tasks for society within their countries’ legal frameworks. The European Council of Legal and Forensic Medicine has published collaborative papers on international standards and guidelines for forensic examinations by forensic physicians and pathologists of deaths and injuries in the areas of accreditation of pathology services; on-site scene and corpse investigation; examination of victims of sexual assault and of elder abuse; and also in undergraduate and postgraduate forensic teaching and training, in pursuit of international harmonisation.