[Medical and legal problems of death certificates]

The objectives of this article are to clarify the concepts of violent death, suspicious death and natural death, and to define the situations which need to be reported to the coroner's office, while referring to the recommendations of the National Order of the Doctors and to the European recommendation n degrees R (99) 3 about the harmonisation of the rules in the field of forensic autopsy. In practice, the indications for forensic autopsy are as follows: homicide or suspicion of homicide, suicide or suspicion of suicide, violation of human rights, death in custody or potentially associated actions of police or army, death engaging a possible responsibility, death bringing into play a particular legislation, collective catastrophe, unexpected sudden death, not identified bodies or skeletal remainders. A guiding principle is that an unexpected death remains non natural until forensic proof of the opposite!