Certification of Death (Scotland) Act 2011

Powers of medical reviewers

14 Power to require documents

(1) A medical reviewer may for the purposes of—

(a) reviewing a medical certificate of cause of death under section 8(1) or, as the case may be, section 11(2), or

(b) determining whether it is safe to cremate the body of a person who died outwith Scotland under section 18(2),

require any person who is able, in the opinion of the medical reviewer, to produce relevant documents (including health records) to do so.

(2) Where a requirement under subsection (1) is imposed by the medical reviewer, the person in question must be given a notice specifying—

(a) the documents or types of documents which the person is required to produce,

(b) the date by which the person is required to produce them, and

(c) the name of the deceased person in respect of whom they are required.

(3) For the purposes of this section, a person is to be taken to comply with a requirement to produce a document if that person produces a copy of, or an extract of the relevant part of, the document.

(4) In this section, references to the medical reviewer include references to the senior medical reviewer.

15 Documents: offences

(1) Any person to whom a notice under section 14 is given commits an offence if the person—

(a) deliberately alters, suppresses, conceals or destroys any document which that person is required to produce by the notice, or

(b) refuses or fails to produce any such document.

(2) It is a defence for a person charged with an offence under subsection (1)(b) to prove that there was a reasonable excuse for the refusal or failure.

(3) A person is not obliged under section 14 to produce any document which that person would be entitled to refuse to produce in a court in Scotland.

(4) A person who commits an offence under this section is liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding level 5 on the standard scale or to imprisonment for a period not exceeding 3 months.

(5) Where an offence under this section which has been committed by a body corporate is proved to have been committed with the consent or connivance of, or to be attributable to any neglect on the part of—

(a) a director, manager, secretary or other similar officer of the body corporate, or

(b) any person who was purporting to act in any such capacity,

that person, as well as the body corporate, commits the offence and is liable to be proceeded against accordingly.