KEY POINTS:
The Justice Ministry is to look at whether a law change is needed after recent cases of body-snatching by grieving family members.
Prime Minister Helen Clark said yesterday that the ministry would examine the issue and advise Justice Minister Annette King if a law change would help.
There have been several high-profile cases recently, the latest resolved on Friday with the burial of Ivy May Ngahooro in Hamilton.
Her body was taken that week to a Taumarunui marae by daughter Joanne Bennett who, with three brothers, wanted to bury her there.
The snatching of Ms Ngahooro's body followed that of John Takamore last August and, in December, that of Tina Marshall-McMenamin.
Ms King had been set to consider whether to refer the issue to the Law Commission. But yesterday Helen Clark revealed a wider look was on the cards.
She said "the gist" of the problem was that a body was not property which meant no one could own it.
At present the executor of a deceased person's estate was entitled to custody of the body and had a legal duty to bury, cremate, or otherwise dispose of it but the family's wishes were usually respected.
"The problem is with enforcement, especially given the charged circumstances in which these issues tend to arise," Helen Clark said.
"So the Ministry of Justice will be advising Annette King on whether legislative amendment would help."
The ministry would consider powers available to police when a body is taken and what happens when someone dies with no will.
Police were also looking at whether they needed to change procedures and protocols for dealing with body-snatching cases.
While it was not illegal to take a body, taking a coffin was theft and it was possible police could charge people with offering an indignity to a dead human body. "We are carefully going into those issues."
Earlier yesterday Acting Chief Coroner Wallace Bain, after talking to Maori leaders, suggested coroners be given exclusive jurisdiction over custody of all bodies by amending the Coroners Act.
He said when deaths were reported to the coroner he or she had exclusive jurisdiction and right to custody until authorising release of the body and this could be widened.
He proposed that any member of the public, funeral director or police officer should be able to report a death to a coroner at any time, especially when there appeared to be a dispute over custody or burial.
Helen Clark said the idea was worth considering. "I think it's one of the things that has to be put on the table."
- NZPA
