Legal and Forensic Medicine || Legal Medicine and Forensic System in Portugal

Legal Medicine and Forensic System inPortugal 34Duarte Nuno Vieira

Abstract

This chapter provides an overview of the Portuguese Medico-Legal System.

The origins and evolution of Legal Medicine and Forensic Sciences in Portugal

are presented and a special analysis of the present organization of the Portuguese

National Institute of Legal Medicine and Forensic Sciences is made, involving

its advantages and insufficiencies and the future perspectives.

Introduction

The first Portuguese legal texts containing norms relating to forensic investigations

date from the sixteenth century. They stipulated that examinations carried out in the

context of crimes through injury required the intervention of two surgeons. Over the

following centuries, many other laws were passed to better regulate aspects of

forensic examinations, culminating in the creation of a proper forensic system three

centuries later.

It was only in the nineteenth century that forensic science in Portugal made

the qualitative leap that enabled it to develop into what it is today. Over the course

of that century, legal medicine became an autonomous university discipline, and the

first official forensic institutions were set up in Portugal. In the twentieth century,

a number of alterations were implemented designed to bring improvements (not

always achieved), culminating in a profound restructuring of the whole Portuguese

medico-legal system at the turn of the millennium. This involved the unification of

Portuguese legal-medical services into a single body, the National Institute of Legal

D.N. Vieira

National Institute of Legal Medicine and Forensic Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, University of

Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal

e-mail: [email protected]

R.G. Beran (ed.), Legal and Forensic Medicine,DOI 10.1007/978-3-642-32338-6_45, # Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2013

571

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Medicine. Recently, this institution has been expanded to cover all forensic areas,

and its name has been changed to the National Institute of Legal Medicine and

Forensic Sciences.

Legal Medicine and Forensic Services in Portugal

The first public forensic institutions were set up in Portugal in 1899 in response to

demands (which had been going on for decades) from scientific societies and the

media. These first institutions (known as morgues, a name which at the time

aroused considerable controversy) were designed to perform autopsies, legal-

medical clinical examinations and various kinds of laboratory tests. Three morgues

were created at the time, each one responsible for a different region of the country:

the north, centre and south. They were located in Porto, Coimbra and Lisbon,

respectively, and operated within the Medical Schools, forging felicitous links

with the universities that are still maintained today.

The morgues were in existence until 1918, when they were dissolved. Thereaf-

ter, they became known as the Institutes of Legal Medicine (ILM) of Porto,

Coimbra and Lisbon.

Over the years, with scientific, technological and legal advances, these institu-

tions developed various areas of forensic intervention, covering all domains of

legal-medical and forensic practice: autopsies; clinical forensic examinations in

various branches of law (criminal, civil, labour); forensic chemistry, toxicology and

genetics; the examination of handwriting, documents and ballistics; forensic

anthropology and psychiatry, etc. All forensic investigative activity was thus

secured by them. Since 1960, some of these areas have been transferred to the

Scientific Police Laboratory (SPL), which was set up that year in Lisbon under the

control of the Judiciary Police (criminal investigation unit); the forensic activities

carried out by this department will be described below. The ILM retained respon-

sibility for forensic pathology (including autopsies, forensic histopathology and

forensic anthropology), forensic clinical medicine (including forensic examinations

of victims in civil, criminal and labour law cases, examinations in the sphere of

forensic psychiatry, etc.), forensic genetics and forensic toxicology. The remaining

forensic areas, such as document, ballistic and physical-chemical examinations,

were transferred to the SPL.

Two more important reorganizations of the country’s legal-medical structure

(i.e., involving only the ILM) occurred later, in the second half of the twentieth

century (in 1987 and 1998). Amongst the innovations introduced at this time, the

following are particularly worthy of attention:

1. The creation of a Medico-Legal Council (first called the Conselho Superior deMedicina Legal and later renamed the Conselho Nacional de Medicina Legal),abolished in 2007, which was composed of representatives of the main organiza-

tions directly or indirectly related to legal-medical and forensic activity; its

functions included the issuing of expert opinions about the reforms and performance

of the legal-medical system and about cooperation models to ensure the liaison of

572 D.N. Vieira

legal-medical departments with other departments or institutions, the drawing-up of

recommendations in the sphere of legal-medical and forensic activity, etc.;

2. A provision for the creation of Medico-Legal Offices in areas of high

demand; an effort to restructure and dignify the legal-medical career and

include it within the university career; and an alteration to the system used

for appointing medical experts in an attempt to bring greater rigour to the

recruitment process;

3. A reinforcement of the ILM’s capacity for technical-scientific intervention,

research and professional training.

4. A provision designed to allow public legal-medical institutions to provide

services to individuals and private entities;

5. The implementation of shift rotas to ensure that medical experts are always on

hand to deal with urgent legal-medical matters;

6. The introduction of a hospital medical career in legal-medical services, etc.

7. Until the end of the twentieth century, the Lisbon, Porto and Coimbra IML were

totally autonomous and independent. This situation was not ideal. For example,

it resulted in the development of different schools of thought and methodological

divergences, with important repercussions on the administration of justice

(different forensic interpretations and evaluations were proffered for similar

situations depending upon the zone of the country in question and the ILM

responsible for it). This fact, combined with the need for better rationalization of

the existing technical and human resources and the need for single coordination

of forensic activity in Portugal, motivated the governmental decision to

completely overhaul the legal-medical system at the turn of the millennium,

within the context of a structural reform of the Portuguese Ministry of Justice.

Hence, the Institutes of Legal Medicine in Lisbon, Porto and Coimbra were

dissolved and unified into a single body, known as the National Institute of Legal

Medicine (NILM).

The success of this Institute and the national and international projection that it

achieved led to an expansion and reinforcement of its powers 11 years later, when

its name was altered to the National Institute of Legal Medicine and Forensic

Sciences (NILMFS).

The NILMFS: Status, Structure and Sphere of Influence

As we have seen, Portugal has had a single National Institute for Legal Medicine

since 2001, which altered its name in 2011 to the National Institute of Legal

Medicine and Forensic Sciences (NILMFS). The NILMFS is a central organization

with jurisdiction over the whole of Portugal. It is based in Coimbra in the centre of

the country but has three delegations (the delegations of the North, Centre and

South located in Porto, Coimbra and Lisbon respectively), as well as a network of

27 Medico-Legal and Forensic Offices dispersed throughout the country. These

bodies together provide legal-medical and forensic coverage for the whole of

the country, as described below.

34 Legal Medicine and Forensic System in Portugal 573

The NILMFS has the legal status of a public institute indirectly administered by

the state (that is to say, it is overseen by the Ministry of Justice), with autonomy

over its own property and on administrative and financial matters. It also operates as

a state laboratory and is considered the official national institution with regards to

its mission and functions.

Its mission is to provide legal-medical and forensic services, coordinate research

and training in the area of legal medicine and the other forensic sciences, and to

oversee and supervise the activities of its legal-medical departments and the experts

contracted to provide specialist services.

Its functions (which involve close collaboration with other Ministry of Justice

organizations) include:

(a) Providing support for policy definition in the area of legal medicine and the

other forensic sciences;

(b) Cooperating with courts and other departments and bodies intervening in the

justice system by performing examinations and issuing legal-medical and

forensic appraisals, whenever required to do so under the terms of the law,

and by providing specialized technical and laboratorial support within the

sphere of its powers;

(c) Promoting and disseminating scientific research, training and education,

within the sphere of legal medicine and the other forensic sciences, and

developing forms of scientific and pedagogical collaboration with other

institutions;

(d) Supervising the organization and management of its forensic departments

throughout the country;

(e) Planning and executing actions related to the training, management and assess-

ment of its human resources in the area of forensic sciences;

(f) Adopting quality assurance programmes as applied to legal-medical and foren-

sic appraisals and examinations and promoting the harmonization of method-

ologies, techniques and specialist reports (by, for example, issuing technical

and scientific directives about the matter);

(g) Directing, coordinating and inspecting the technical and scientific activities of

its delegations, Medico-Legal Offices and professionals contracted to provide

specialist functions;

(h) Coordinating, orienting and supervising activities related to the forensic sciences

at national level;

(i) Providing services to public and private entities and to individuals, in domains

that involve the application of legal-medical and other kinds of forensic

knowledge;

(j) Liaising with other similar bodies abroad and with international organizations;

(k) Ensuring the functioning of the DNA Profile Database.

Under the terms of the law, the NILMFS pursues its functions and exercises

its remit in collaboration with higher education and research establishments

(both public and private), following the signing of protocols in the area of educa-

tion, training and scientific research, thus maintaining the close connection with the

universities that has always characterised the Portuguese forensic system.

574 D.N. Vieira

The NILMFS may agree protocols with other public or private institutions,

such as health departments and teaching or research establishments, with

a view to: i) providing technical and scientific training for professionals that

perform or will perform specialist tasks within its sphere of competence; ii) using

their facilities and equipment for the installation of Medico-Legal and Forensic

Offices, the performance of forensic services or for research projects;

iii) ensuring the collaboration of their staff in examinations and appraisals within

its competence.

The Organization of the NILMFS

The NILMFS currently has four administrative bodies: the Managment Board,

Medico-Legal Council, Ethics Committee and a Supervisor. Let us look at each

one in turn.

The function of the Management Board is to direct the Institute, and it is therefore

endowed with all the managerial, organizational and supervisory powers that this

entails. It is comprised of a president, vice-president and two other board members.

Ideally, all are appointed from amongst the university lecturers in legal medicine or

the other forensic sciences, or the directors of medical departments, provided they

have the qualifications, training and experience necessary for the task. These board

members also direct the delegations in the north, centre and south of the country.

As for the Medico-Legal Council, this is one of the oldest bodies in the

Portuguese medico-legal system, in existence since 1918. It is presided over by

the president of the Management Board and includes the vice-president and other

members of that board, a representative of the disciplinary councils of the three

regional sectors of the Portuguese Medical Association, and 11 medical professors

in various areas, indicated by the Faculties of Medicine (Clinical Surgery, Clinical

Medicine, Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Pathology, Medical Ethics and/or Law,

Orthopaedics and Traumatology, Neurology or Neurosurgery, and Psychiatry), and

two law professors (one from criminal law and the other from civil law) indicated

by the Faculties of Law. Whenever necessary, the Medico-Legal Council may also

request the collaboration and presence at meetings of professors from other disci-

plines or higher education establishments and of specialists of recognised merit.

The secretary of the Medico-Legal Council is appointed by it, upon the suggestion

of the president, and is ideally a university lecturer in the area of legal medicine or

the other forensic sciences.

The Medico-Legal Council has a range of functions, namely:

(a) To provide technical and scientific consultancy services;

(b) To issue opinions on technical and scientific matters within the sphere of legal

medicine and other forensic sciences

(c) To monitor and assess the expert services provided by the NILMFS, proposing

any measures that it deems appropriate for the due fulfilment of its tasks, and

issuing discretionary opinions about any reforms to be introduced into the

national forensic system or which have implications for its functioning;


(d) To issue opinions about cooperation models to be used for liaisons between

forensic departments and other departments or institutions;

(e) To pronounce upon matters related to the Institute’s powers, of its own initia-

tive or at the request of the Management Board;

(f) To draw up recommendations within the ambit of legal-medical and forensic

activity;

(g) To appoint two individuals of recognised merit to the NILMFS’s Ethics

Committee.

The main function of the Medico-Legal Council is to provide technical and

scientific consultancy services (i.e., to issue expert opinions about technical

and scientific matters), as occurs whenever a court is dealing with cases involving

medical matters that are controversial or difficult to interpret. To avoid being

inundated with requests from the courts, technical and scientific consultations of

this kind may only be requested by the Ministry of Justice, Supreme Judicial

Council, Public Prosecutor or President of the NILMFS’s Management Board.

The Ethics Committee supports the other NILMFS bodies and has a consultative

role on ethical matters connected to the fulfilment of the Institute’s object and

functions. It is responsible for encouraging reflection and helps define appropriate

guidelines for the consolidation of a policy to safeguard ethical principles, by

issuing opinions, when requested to do so, or proposing codes of conduct of its

own initiative.

The Ethics Committee consists of the president of the Management Board

(or another member of the Management Board appointed by him) who presides,

one university lecturer in medical ethics and one in medical law, and also two

individuals of recognised technical and scientific merit appointed by the Medico-

Legal Council, upon the proposal of the Management Board.

Finally, the Supervisor is appointed by the government and is responsible for

overseeing the NILMFS’s financial matters.

NILMFS Departments and Their Respective Powers

The NILMFS is not based in the capital of the country but rather in Coimbra, a city

located in the central zone of Portugal, as mentioned above. The Department of

General Administration and the Department of Research, Training and Documen-

tation operate from its headquarters, as do the Management Board and Medico-

Legal Council.

The Department of General Administration is responsible for all activities and

tasks necessary for the administrative, financial and patrimonial administration of

the Institute, including human resources, electronic equipment, and technological

updating. The law provides for the creation of up to eight flexible units to assist the

Department of General Administration, whose functions are defined and approved

by the Management Board. These are the Human Resources Division, the Financial

Division, the IT Division, the Legal Division, the Division of Auditing and Quality

Management, and three Administrative Divisions (one for each area of the country).

576 D.N. Vieira

In all three Delegations, there is a Forensic Clinical and Pathology Department.

The Department of Forensic Chemistry and Toxicology is based in the Southern

Delegation; the Department of Forensic Genetics and Biology are in the Centre

Delegation, while the Department of Forensic and Criminalistic Technologies are

based in the Northern Delegation. These three departments, located in each of the

Delegations, may have operative units in other delegations, in addition to the one in

which they are based.

The Forensic Biology and Genetics Department is responsible for providing

specialist appraisals and carrying out tests for the purpose of genetic identification

(to establish kinship or individual identification, biological criminalistics, etc.).

The Forensic Chemistry and Toxicology Department performs chemical and tox-

icological tests and issues appraisals in this area. The Forensic Technology and

Criminalistic Department is responsible for researching, recording, collecting and

processing evidence, and for providing expert services in forensic areas not covered

by the other technical departments, such as handwriting, document and ballistic

analysis, forensic physics, and forensic engineering. Each of these three depart-

ments operates on the national level and can also issue opinions and provide

technical and scientific consultancy within their sphere of competence.

There are Forensic Clinical and Pathology Department in each of the three

NILMFS delegations, which provide specialist services throughout the area cov-

ered by the delegation in question. Each has two functional units: a unit of Clinical

Forensic Medicine and a unit of Forensic Pathology. The Clinical Forensic Medi-

cine unit examines individuals in order to describe and assess any damage caused to

their psychophysical integrity under various branches of law (particularly criminal,

civil and labour law). It also performs examinations in the area of forensic psychi-

atry and psychology and issues appraisals in other related fields (such as of a social

nature). The Forensic Pathology unit is responsible for performing legal-medical

autopsies for deaths occurring in their area of jurisdiction and carries out forensic

pathology examinations and similar acts on behalf of their delegation and the

Medico-Legal Offices under its jurisdiction, such as the identification of cadavers

and human remains, embalming and the study of anatomical pieces.

The Forensic Clinical and Pathology Department issues appraisals and provides

technical and scientific consultancy services within its sphere of competence. In the

area covered by this department, other functional units may be proposed by the

director of the delegation, after consultation with the director of that department,

relating to specific areas, such as Forensic Anthropology, Forensic Dentistry or

Forensic Entomology.

The Forensic Clinical and Pathology Department also supervise (technically and

scientifically) the Medico-Legal Offices operating under their delegation’s author-

ity. As we have seen, the NILMFS has a network of 27 Medico-Legal and Forensic

Offices. To avoid duplicating resources, these operate from the main district

hospitals, through cooperation protocols agreed between the NILMFS and each

one, though they are independent of the health services and answerable to the

NILMFS. They essentially provide forensic services of a medical nature and are

deliberately decentralized so that examinees do not have to travel to the


delegations. Samples are sent to the delegations for laboratorial testing, using

mechanisms that guarantee the chain of custody.

The Medico-Legal and Forensic Offices are responsible for performing exami-

nations and issuing appraisals for the description and assessment of damage to

psychophysical integrity in the ambit of criminal, civil and labour law and for

providing specialist services in forensic psychiatry and psychology. They also carry

out legal-medical autopsies for deaths occurring in their respective areas of juris-

diction, as well as other acts in this domain, such as forensic anthropology, the

identification of cadavers, embalming, and collecting samples for complementary

laboratory tests, and, exceptionally, other examinations, in the ambit of their legal-

medical and forensic duties.

Legal-Medical Departments and Services

The NILMFS is formed of three delegations (North, Centre and South) and

27 Medico-Legal and Forensic Offices. Each delegation is responsible for the

forensic clinical and pathology department in the area of the country in which it

is located, and each has a cluster of Medico-Legal and Forensic Offices functioning

under it. Each delegation also houses a different forensic division, which is respon-

sible for providing expertise in this domain throughout the country (the Forensic

Chemistry and Toxicology Division is based in the Southern Delegation; Forensic

Genetics and Biology is in the Centre Delegation, while Forensic Technologies and

Criminalistics is based in the Northern Delegation).

The delegations operate in close contact with the universities (faculties of

medicine), and there is no separation between their forensic activities and the

training/education and scientific research that they are also engaged in; that is to

say, the university component of legal medicine and the other forensic sciences

functions within the public services of the National Institute of Legal Medicine and

Forensic Sciences. Thus (and as has always happened in the past), the directors of

the delegations and the President of the Management Board have tended to be the

professors responsible for the teaching of legal medicine in the medical faculties of

their respective areas. This situation, which has persisted since the time of the

morgues, is considered to be a significant advantage for the organization of legal

medicine and forensic science in Portugal.

The directors of the medically-oriented departments (Forensic Clinical and

Pathology Department) are appointed by the Minister of Justice, following nomi-

nation by the Management Board of NILMFS and justification by the directors of

the respective delegations, and are preferentially specialists in legal medicine that

are simultaneously university lecturers or researchers. The directors of the other

departments are appointed following a public application procedure amongst qual-

ified candidates with an appropriate academic status, who are also preferably

university lecturers or researchers. The preference for a professional that is also

a university lecturer or researcher also holds for the position of director of the

Department of Research, Training and Documentation.

578 D.N. Vieira

It should be stressed that, under the terms of the law, the NILMFS is exclusively

responsible for providing expert appraisals for the courts. These appraisals must be

carried out in the delegations and Medico-Legal and Forensic Offices of NILMFS,

and only exceptionally (when it is clearly impossible for this to occur or because

there are no specialists with the required training or material conditions available)

may they be performed by third parties, public or private, contracted or indicated

for the purpose by the Institute. The NILMFS may by law delegate the performance

of examinations and appraisals, as well as the organization of courses and training

programmes to other public or private bodies, national or foreign.

Criminal complaints may be filed at the Institute’s delegations and Medico-

Legal and Forensic Offices, within the sphere of its specialist activity, and must

then be transmitted as quickly as possible to the Public Prosecution Service. The

Institute’s delegations and Medico-Legal and Forensic Offices may also take any

preventive measures deemed urgent and necessary to secure evidence and may

proceed to examine, collect and preserve it without prejudice to the legal powers of

the police authority responsible for the investigation.

All examinations and appraisals performed by the NILMFS, or delegated by it to

other entities, have a fixed cost stipulated by law (the price list is proposed by the

Management Board and approved by the Ministry of Justice), payable whenever

such services are requested by the courts. These are considered costs of the legal

proceedings, to be borne by the guilty party. When no guilty party has been

identified, or if that person is not financially solvent, the state will support the

cost (thereby guaranteeing and safeguarding free justice for victims); in other cases,

the state may recover the money of legal medicine and forensic services. The

NILMFS does not receive any funding from the state but rather operates solely

from the income that it generates from the services it provides.

In addition to its mission to assist the courts in the application of justice by

performing any examinations necessary for that purpose, NILMFS may also carry

out examinations at the request of public or private bodies and individuals. The cost

is exactly the same as when the service has been requested by a court.

The Portuguese medico-legal system guarantees the specialist total freedom to

carry out any complementary examinations he/she deems necessary. The judge may

not interfere in decisions regarding which specialist(s) should perform the exami-

nations or what examinations or complementary tests are needed, and the court has

to pay for any forensic tests that have been performed (histological, toxicological,

genetic, entomological). Naturally, the specialist should only request those exam-

inations and tests that are scientifically justifiable in each situation and will be

penalized for any abuse of this system.

Each specialist has total technical and scientific freedom with regard to the

interpretation made of each situation and the conclusions drawn and is responsible

for the forensic services, reports and appraisals that he/she provides. Specialists

are, however, obliged to respect and follow the norms, models and methodologies

in force in the Institute, as well as any recommendations arising from the technical

and scientific supervision of departments. In fact, they may undergo periodic

inspections to assess the quality of the work they produce. The law also


establishes that, in exceptional circumstances, when urgently required by

the department, if the specialist that performed the examination is clearly

unavailable, the report may be drawn up or concluded by another expert, appointed

by the directors or coordinators of the respective departments, provided that he/she

is (at least) as qualified as the first and has all the necessary conditions available

for the purpose.

In exercising their expert functions, doctors and other technicians have access to

all the relevant information (as appears in the records of the proceedings), which

should be provided in a timely manner by the competent bodies in order to ensure

full comprehension of the facts and an exhaustive and rigorous expert investigation.

Clinical information concerning the examinees in legal-medical cases may be

requested, under the terms of the law, by the president of the Institute, directors

of the delegations, directors of the technical departments and coordinators of the

Medico-Legal Offices directly from the clinical services of hospitals, insurance

companies or other public or private bodies and should be made available within

a period of 30 days.

The NILMFS may also, under the terms of the law, apply directly to public

institutions and organizations, such as the Ministry of Health, or to any private

body, for information or facts necessary for the fulfilment of its functions, in the

ambit of judicial procedures in progress.

In the delegations and Medico-Legal and Forensic Offices that have sufficient

legal-medical experts on their staff, a daily shift rota is in operation 24 h a day,

meaning that there is always a medical expert on call for urgent matters. Under

Portuguese law, legal-medical services are considered to be urgent in the case of

victims of violence, who need to be examined quickly in order to secure samples or

evidence that might otherwise be altered or lost, and for the inspection of a crime

scene when there are deaths resulting from a felony or whenever this is suspected.

Experts adhering to this monthly shift rota system are paid a supplement to their

regular salary. Unfortunately, there is still a shortage of true specialists in legal

medicine on the NILMFS staff, which has made it impossible to extend this shift

rota beyond the areas covered by the delegations. However, thanks to the good will

and commitment of the many experts of the Medico-Legal and Forensic Offices,

this has not prevented coverage of other parts of the country.

NILMFS doctors are obliged to serve temporarily in any Medico-Legal and

Forensic Office within the territorial area served by the delegation to which they

belong, or in that delegation itself, when they are appointed by reasoned order.

In these cases, the territorial limits established for the mobility of workers exercis-

ing public functions are respected.

After examining the evidence, biological products or anatomical pieces, the

expert then collects, packages and seals any samples worthy of further study and

destroys the rest. The sample is deposited in the legal medicine department for two

years, after which it may be destroyed, unless the court has, in the meantime, issued

any instructions to the contrary.

Under the terms of the law, no one may refuse to undergo any legal-medical

examination that has been deemed necessary for the inquiry or investigation of any

580 D.N. Vieira

case, provided this has been ordered by the competent judicial authority. Any

person that has been duly notified or summoned by the director of a delegation of

the Institute or by the coordinator of a Medico-Legal and Forensic Office for the

purpose of examination must appear at the designated time and place, and any

absences will be communicated to the competent judicial authority. The examinee

may be accompanied at the examination by a friend or family member, if he/she

desires, and the competent judicial authority may also participate in the examina-

tion, if it so chooses, though in practice this rarely occurs.

Examinees that reside outside the area covered by the delegation, Medico-Legal

Office or specialised university or health department where the examination will

take place may apply for compensation for expenses incurred. This then becomes

a cost of the legal proceedings, to be paid by the guilty party or supported by the

state if no one is found guilty or if that individual is not financially solvent.

The NILMFS has a videoconferencing system at its disposal to connect its

delegations with each together and with the courts; hence, experts may testify

from the legal medicine departments without having to travel to the courts in

person, whenever the magistrate deems it necessary to hear them and agrees to

this form of communication. The time spent by this expert in this activity (whether

by videoconference or in person) is also covered by the court in accordance with an

official price list and will form part of the legal costs of the proceedings.

As regards legal-medical autopsies, under Portuguese law, these are performed

in situations of violent death or when the cause of death is unknown, unless there is

sufficient clinical and other evidence to enable the Public Prosecution Service to

safely exclude the possibility of crime, in which case the magistrate may dispense

with the need for an autopsy. However, such a dispensation can never occur in

situations of immediate violent death resulting from a work or road accident. Under

the terms of the law in force, medico-legal autopsy may also be dispensed with

when there is a serious risk to public health. In these cases, the president of

the management board of the Institute will authorize the dispensation by

communicating this in writing to the competent judicial authority in as short

a period as possible.

When a medico-legal autopsy has been ordered, it may be performed after

certain signs of death have been noted. It should be scheduled as soon as the

legal-medical department can accept it, in accordance with its capacity. Autopsies

are usually carried out by an experienced doctor assisted by a technician, though

they often involve more than one medical expert. The presence of two doctors is

necessary in criminal cases or when a felony is suspected.

There is usually a close connection between legal-medical departments and

criminal investigation bodies, which often come to the legal medicine departments

to attend the autopsies.

Since the creation of the NILMFS, a National Conference of Legal Medicine

(now entitled the National Conference of Legal Medicine and Forensic Sciences)

has been organized annually. This always takes place in the second weekend of

November and is organized by the delegations of the Centre, South and North of

Portugal in turn. These conferences usually involve the analysis of the most recent


legal, technological and scientific advances, a review of forensic topics, and the

presentation and discussion of practical cases, promoting the sharing of experiences

and reflections. Each year, an international personality of recognised merit is

usually invited to lecture on a subject in their area of expertise. These conferences

are always preceded by theoretical-practical courses on specific subjects. The

NILMFS also organises regular theoretical-practical courses in various areas of

the forensic sciences, and during its first decade of existence, organized in Portugal

practically all the main international conferences in the field of legal medicine and

forensic science, with considerable success. It has also been responsible for

a genetic database for Portugal since its authorization.

Legal medicine in Portugal is presently in a particularly vibrant phase of growth.

The creation of the NILM and its evolution to the NILMFS has been a positive and

encouraging experience. It has been unanimously applauded by everyone directly

or indirectly associated with legal-medical and the forensic services, such as

magistrates, lawyers, insurance companies, and victims including at international

level. The only exceptions are a few isolated voices, which saw in the creation of

the NILMFS a loss of personal protagonism or influence.

The NILMFS will certainly continue to grow in the future, particularly now

that its sphere of competence has been substantially increased. Indeed, the

Portuguese model has been considered worthy of study and imitation, in the light

of the results it has achieved and the value and independence of the services that it

provides.

National and International Cooperation

As mentioned above, Portuguese law stipulates that the NILMFS fulfils its duties

and exercises its functions in collaboration with higher education and research

institutions, public or private, through protocols in the areas of education, training

and scientific research. The NILMFS may by law delegate the organization of

courses and training programmes, as well as the performance of examinations

and appraisals, to other public or private bodies, national or foreign. This has in

fact occurred, and the NILMFS has protocols for scientific, pedagogical and

forensic collaboration with multiple institutions and organizations in Portugal and

abroad. Thus, to avoid increased expenditure in certain areas of activity for which

the NILMFS does not have the necessary (human and scientific) resources, or when

the annual number of forensic examinations does not justify the economic invest-

ment required for the purchase of specific equipment (in the areas of forensic

entomology or palynology, for example), these examinations are carried out in

other institutions, usually university departments, with which the NILMFS has

agreed protocols.

In the international context, the NILMFS has been very active on various

levels since its formation. In education and research, it has participated in various

postgraduate and masters courses (in Europe, South America and Africa) and in

582 D.N. Vieira

international exchange programmes (such as the Erasmus and Socrates

programmes) and regularly collaborates in joint research projects and training

programmes with foreign universities (particularly in Europe and South Amer-

ica). It has organized and taught courses in legal medicine and other forensic

sciences in Kosovo at the request of UNMIK, is currently preparing training

courses for professionals in Iraq (through the EUJUSTLEX programme) and

Timor (with collaboration of the International Red Cross), and has trained pro-

fessionals in many countries (Cape Verde, Angola, Brazil, Bolivia, Sri Lanka,

Morocco, Spain, Tunisia and others). It has also actively participated in interna-

tional missions in five continents, as an institution and also through the individual

participation of some of its members. These include legal-medical interventions

in disaster zones (such as the Asian tsunami and the Haiti earthquake), in

situations of genocide and war (in Bosnia and Kosovo), in missions for the UN

High Commission for Human Rights, the Committee Against Torture, the Inter-

national Red Cross, the Organization of American States, the Arab League, etc.,

and in judicial investigations at the request of higher courts in various countries.

In the first decade of its existence, such missions have taken NILMFS profes-

sionals to countries such as Kazakhstan, Tunisia, Papua Nova Guinea, Paraguay,

Columbia, Indonesia, Mexico, Greece, Nigeria, Equatorial Guinea, Ivory Coast,

Moldavia, Cyprus, Kyrgyzstan, Brazil, Peru, Argentina and Chile among

many other.

The Scientific Police Laboratory

In addition to the expert services provided by the NILMFS, which accounts for

most of the forensic activity carried out annually in Portugal (over 200,000 such

services were performed by the NILMFS in 2012), Portugal also has a Scientific

Police Laboratory (SPL), which functions in the ambit of the Judiciary Police.

This laboratory was planned in 1957 and started functioning properly in 1960,

when some of the areas of expertise that had previously been provided by the ILM

were transferred to it. It provides expert support for the activities of the judiciary

police and government bodies. Initially located only in Lisbon (where its main

headquarters now are), it has since opened extensions in Porto, Coimbra and Faro.

Today it has delegations in the North, Centre and South of the country, eight

criminalistic units (two in the North, two in the Centre, two in the South, and one

in each of the autonomous regions of Madeira and the Azores) and all the infra-

structures of the Judiciary police units.

Its activities are divided into three broad areas: Criminalistics, Biotoxicology,

and Forensic Physics and Documents. The inspection and identification sectors

operate within the area of Criminalistics, covering crime scene investigations,

firearms and explosives, fingerprinting, photography, forensic drawing, etc. The

Forensic Physics and Document area includes counterfeit currency analysis,

fingerprinting, documents, handwriting, ballistics and toolmarks.


As for Biotoxicology, the toxicology sector is responsible for biology, forensic

toxicology and chemistry.

In 2012, the SPL responded to over 40,000 requests for forensic services.

As can be seen, the SPL has two areas of activity in common with the INMCFL,

forensic genetics and forensic toxicology. In principle, for these services, the legal

medicine departments are responsible for analysing the organic evidence gathered

from the victims examined, while the SPL examines evidence or samples collected

at the site, after which the data is pooled. In fact there is an increasingly close and

fertile collaboration between the two institutions, in order to provide a timely

response to the growing number of requests for its services. This collaboration

has intensified in recent years, down to the joint organization of conferences of the

International Association of Forensic Sciences, the Mediterranean Academy of

Forensic Sciences and the World Association of Police Doctors. With the recent

extension of the range of expert services provided by the NILMFS, common

areas of forensic expertise will certainly become more significant, although in

areas where there is little demand, there are no plans to implement initiatives that

will involve the unnecessary duplication of resources.

The Criminalistics Department of the National Republican Guard

In Portugal, the National Republic Guard (GNR) also intervenes in the sphere of

forensics. Although this intervention dates back to the 1930s, the GNR’s Criminal

Investigation sector was reorganized in 2002, generating a more solid and consis-

tent structure of expert intervention.

The GNR’s Criminalistic sector currently has a centralised structure, the Crim-

inalistics Division, which includes the GNR’s Criminalistic Laboratory

(LABCRIMGNR), located near Lisbon (Alcabideche, Cascais). Dependent on it

are 18 Criminalistic subsections, one in each district. These have seven Technical

Expertise Units, including the Judiciary Inspection Laboratories (LABINSPGNR)

and Identification Laboratories (LABIDENGNR), located in Braga, Porto, Aveiro,

Castelo Branco, Santarem, Evora and Faro, as well as 24 Technical Support Centres

(Crime Scene Teams), strategically distributed around the national territory.

The Criminalistic Division is responsible for the national coordination of the

Criminalistics, Management and Quality Control of the forensic services, and for

Disaster Victim Identification. The Criminalistic Division carries out expert inves-

tigations and is presently (though this is still at the initial phase) implementing

forensic services in the following areas: facial and lophoscopic human identifica-

tion; judiciary inspections and special evidence (toolmarks, footprints and

wheelmarks, glass, paints, fibres and textiles, ballistics); road accidents; photogra-

phy and infographics; forensic computing; and sound and voice recognition.

The Centres for Technical Expertise (CTE) were initially designed to operate

AFIS Work Stations. Over time, their duties have expanded, and they are currently

responsible for the processing and analysis of all evidence collected by the Tech-

nical Support Units (TSU) in their area of jurisdiction (this takes place in the

584 D.N. Vieira

LABINSPGNR and LABIDENTGNR), as well as for more complex judicial

technical inspections, especially in situations of suicides/homicides, operative

forensic ballistics, bloodstains, etc.

It is the Technical Support Units that largely undertake judicial technical

inspections at crime scenes. In most cases, TSU members will travel to the

scene of the crime in order to locate, document and gather evidence for

processing, as well as collecting DNA samples for judicial identification, forensic

photography, etc.

Teaching Legal Medicine and the Forensic Sciences

Legal medicine in Portugal first began to be taught at the end of the eighteenth

century, with the profound alterations to university medical courses implemented

by the “Pombaline Statutes” of 1772. At first, the rudiments of legal medicine were

taught on medical and surgical courses with general names in which the word “legal

medicine” did not appear. At that time, there was only one Faculty of Medicine in

Portugal, at the University of Coimbra. It was in this Faculty, following the

profound reforms of the medical education of 1836, that the first discipline was

set up containing the word Legal Medicine; it was called Legal Medicine, PublicHygiene and Medical Police and was taught in the fifth year of the course. By this

time, there were two more medical schools in Portugal, the Medical-Surgical

Schools of Lisbon and Porto. In these two schools, legal medicine was taught in

a discipline called Clinical Medicine, Public Hygiene and Legal Medicine. LegalMedicine was only given more prominence in 1863, when the name was changed to

Legal Medicine and Public Hygiene).Over the years, and in the context of successive reforms of medical education,

the name of the discipline underwent various changes, though it continued to

maintain its associations with public hygiene. Only in 1901 did Legal Medicinebecome completely autonomous as a discipline.

At present, Legal Medicine and the other forensic sciences are taught in many

national universities and in other higher education establishments, public and

private, involving multiple areas directly or indirectly involved with forensic

activity at undergraduate level.

At postgraduate level, Portugal also has a considerable supply of training courses

in the domain of legal medicine and the other forensic sciences. There are masters

and doctorate courses in Legal Medicine and the Forensic Sciences in the main

public universities in the country, usually organized in collaboration with NILM

and its various legal-medical and forensic departments (to ensure the practical

component). But there are many other courses on offer in the public universities

and in many private ones in specific areas of the forensic sciences, such as forensic

toxicology, forensic sexology, forensic clinical medicine, forensic anthropology,

forensic genetics, criminalistics, and forensic psychology. These are postgraduate

courses usually open to graduates from all areas, and they have been very popular

(probably due to the success of television series such as CSI).


Finally, we should point out that a postgraduate course specifically in Legal

Medicine has existed in Portugal since 1918, when it was known as the Higher

Course (Curso Superior) in Legal Medicine. This postgraduate course, taught by

the NILM in Porto, Coimbra and Lisbon (where the NILM delegations are located)

in collaboration with their respective medical schools, was for many years reserved

for graduates of medicine and law. Over time, it opened up to other professional

groups. This course, which lasts a year, aims to provide complementary training

(theoretical and practical) in various domains of legal medicine and the forensic

sciences to anyone interested. It also involves a notable practical component.

The doctors responsible for this training are preferred whenever the public

legal-medical services need to celebrate contracts for the provision of expert

services in areas where there has traditionally been a scarcity in legal medicine

(as described below) or in which the courts occasionally require an expert.

University lecturers in legal medicine may occupy posts in the NILMFS and are

dispensed from the formal application process in accordance with their status in the

legal-medical career, providing they hold a valid teaching contract. They may

exercise these functions during the hours when they are supposed to be present at

their teaching establishment, even when they are employed in a regime of exclusivity.

Finally, it should be pointed out that there also exists in Portugal a Judiciary

Police School, located in Oeiras and functioning under the auspices of the Judiciary

Police, which offers excellent training in the domain of the forensic sciences.

This aims basically to provide specialized training and ongoing education for

the staff of that police force but also cooperates in the field of training and

scientific research with various institutions, nationally and internationally. There

is excellent collaboration and cooperation between this Institute, the universities

and legal-medical departments.

Final Note

The development of legal medicine and the forensic sciences in Portugal has been

particularly positive. Since the beginning of the twenty-first century (and following

the creation of the NILMFS), it has increased its influence, quality and credibility,

and has been more important for education and research. The new organizational

model has made an undeniably important contribution to this positive development.

The perspective created by the recent organizational change in the national legal

medicine and forensic system, particularly with the transition from the National

Institute for Legal Medicine into the National Institute of Legal Medicine and

Forensic Sciences, could represent one more significant step with enormous poten-

tial for continuity, consolidation and growth. This could also be the first step

towards the future unification of all forensic departments into a single Portuguese

Forensic Science Institute.

More information about the organization of legal medicine and forensic services

in Portugal can be found at www.inml.mj.pt

586 D.N. Vieira

http://www.inml.mj.pt

Ready Reckoner

• The first Portuguese legal texts containing norms relating to forensic investiga-

tions date from the sixteenth century. They stipulated that examinations carried

out in the context of crimes through injury required the intervention of two

surgeons. Over the following centuries, many other laws were passed to better

regulate aspects of forensic examinations, culminating in the creation of a proper

forensic system three centuries later.

• It was only in the nineteenth century that forensic science in Portugal made the

qualitative leap that enabled it to develop into what it is today.

• The first public forensic institutions were set up in Portugal in 1899 in response

to demands from scientific societies and the media. These first institutions

(known as morgues, a name which at the time aroused considerable controversy)

were designed to perform autopsies, legal-medical clinical examinations and

various kinds of laboratory tests.

• Over the years, with scientific, technological and legal advances, these institu-

tions developed various areas of forensic intervention, covering all domains of

legal-medical and forensic practice: autopsies; clinical forensic examinations in

various branches of law (criminal, civil, labour); forensic chemistry, toxicology

and genetics; the examination of handwriting, documents and ballistics; forensic

anthropology and psychiatry, etc. All forensic investigative activity was thus

secured by them.

• Since 1960, some of these areas have been transferred to the Scientific Police

Laboratory (SPL), which was set up that year in Lisbon under the control of the

Judiciary Police (criminal investigation unit). The institutions retained respon-

sibility for forensic pathology (including autopsies, forensic histopathology and

forensic anthropology), forensic clinical medicine (including forensic examina-

tions of victims in civil, criminal and labour law cases, examinations in the

sphere of forensic psychiatry, etc.), forensic genetics and forensic toxicology.

The remaining forensic areas, such as document, ballistic and physical-chemical

examinations, were transferred to the SPL.

• Portugal has had a single National Institute for Legal Medicine since 2001,

which altered its name in 2011 to the National Institute of Legal Medicine and

Forensic Sciences (NILMFS). The NILMFS is a central organization with

jurisdiction over the whole of Portugal and is based in Coimbra.

• There is a network of 27 Medico-Legal and Forensic Offices dispersed through-

out the country which together provide legal-medical and forensic coverage for

the whole of the country.

• The NILMFS currently has four administrative bodies: the Management Board,

Medico-Legal Council, Ethics Committee and a Supervisor.

• The NILMFS has exclusive responsibility for providing expert appraisals

for the courts which must be carried out in the delegations and Medico-Legal

and Forensic Offices of NILMFS, and only exceptionally (when it is clearly

impossible for this to occur or because there are no specialists with the

required training or material conditions available) may they be performed


by third parties, public or private, contracted or indicated for the purpose

by the Institute.

• The Portuguese medico-legal system guarantees the specialist total freedom to

carry out any complementary examinations he/she deems necessary. The judge

may not interfere in decisions regarding which specialist(s) should perform the

examinations or what examinations or complementary tests are needed, and the

court has to pay for any forensic tests that have been performed (histological,

toxicological, genetic or entomological).

• In exercising their expert functions, doctors and other technicians have access to

all the relevant information (as appears in the records of the proceedings), which

should be provided in a timely manner by the competent bodies in order to

ensure full comprehension of the facts and an exhaustive and rigorous expert

investigation.

• Under the terms of the law, no one may refuse to undergo any legal-medical

examination that has been deemed necessary for the inquiry or investigation of

any case, provided this has been ordered by the competent judicial authority.

Any person that has been duly notified or summoned by the director of a

delegation of the Institute or by the coordinator of a Medico-Legal and Forensic

Office for the purpose of examination must appear at the designated time and

place, and any absences will be communicated to the competent judicial author-

ity. The examinee may be accompanied at the examination by a friend or family

member, if he/she desires, and the competent judicial authority may also partic-

ipate in the examination, if it so chooses, though in practice this rarely occurs.

• Legal medicine in Portugal first began to be taught at the end of the eighteenth

century, with the profound alterations to university medical courses

implemented by the “Pombaline Statutes” of 1772.

Cross-References

▶Medico Legal Organization in Portugal and Legal Medicine

Further Reading

Vieira DN. Forensic medicine in Portugal. In: Madea B, Saukko P, editors. Forensic medicine in

Europe. L€ubeck: Schimdt-R€omhild; 2008. p. 317–42.

Vieira DN. Forensic medicine and forensic sciences in Portugal. The Bulletin of Legal Medicine.

2009;14(1):40–7.

Vieira DN. O actual sistema medico-legal e forense portugues. In: Almeida F, Paulino M, editors.

Profiling, vitimologia & ciencias forenses. Pactor: Lisbon; 2012. p. 1–15.

Vieira DN, Munoz-Barus JI. El sistema medico-legal y forense portugues. Cuadernos de Medicina

Forense. 2009;15(57):185–9.

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http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-32338-6_49