Forensic standardizations in torture and death in custody investigations

Torture and death in custody have incurred rapid development as juridical subject in recent years in Europe, with the implementation of the European Convention of Human Rights. Evaluation of sufferance severity, which is the consequence of pathology with chronic evolution, the predictability of decompensation of a subclinical pathology, and translating these medical information on a scale measuring the severity of detention consequences, are all challenges for the modern detention healthcare system, in which most allegations of torture are due to lack of appropriate medical treatment administered to inmates. Where ethics are concerned, the main data difficulties are addressed in ethical conflicts between officials and experts of the parties and also between experts and judiciary officials who handle cases of torture or death in detention; this is why standardization is very important in such cases both in clinical expertise and in autopsies or exhumations.

We must improve the forensic expertise methodology, the process of collecting data with statistical purposes, and sound evaluation criteria, all in a strong connection with the need for a balanced legal framework applied in the case of civil compensations granted after death in custody, and the biunique relation between medico-legal expertise and case investigation has to be standardized.