If Someone Dies In Police Custody, An Inquest Is Mandatory. Here Is What A Family Can Do.

If someone you love has died in custody, this page is written for you. You are entitled to answers, and the law says so. Under s.334 of the Criminal Procedure Code, where a person dies in police custody the officer who had custody must immediately notify the nearest Magistrate, and the Magistrate shall hold an inquiry into the cause of death. The immediate steps that matter most, before anything else:

• Do not sign anything you have not read and understood, and do not agree to a burial or cremation before you have taken advice
• Request a copy of the post-mortem report in writing, and keep a copy of your request
• Get a lawyer now, not later. Bar Council Legal Aid Centres: malaysianbar.org.my
• Write down everything while it is fresh: who told you, when, what words they used, what you were told about the cause
• Photograph the body if you are permitted to see it, and note any marks or injuries If you need to talk to someone: Talian Kasih 15999 (24h) · Talian HEAL 15555 (8am–midnight) · Befrienders KL 03-7627 2929 (24h)

A correction to something widely misunderstood: the IPCMC was never enacted. The Independent Police Complaints and Misconduct Commission was recommended by the 2005 Royal Commission (the Dzaiddin Commission). What exists instead is the Independent Police Conduct Commission (IPCC), established under the IPCC Act 2022 (Act 839) and in force from July 2023.

That distinction matters to a family, because the body you can complain to is the IPCC, and its powers are narrower than what the Royal Commission proposed. We set that out honestly below.

1. Section 334 — the provision that gives you a right to an inquest

When any person dies while in the custody of the police or in a psychiatric hospital or prison, the officer who had the custody of that person or was in charge of that psychiatric hospital or prison, as the case may be, shall immediately give intimation of such death to the nearest Magistrate, and the Magistrate or some other Magistrate shall, in the case of a death in the custody of the police, and in other cases may, if he thinks expedient, hold an inquiry into the cause of death.

Read the two limbs carefully, because they are different:

So for a death in police custody, an inquest is mandatory. Families have relied on exactly this. In one reported case, the family of a 37-year-old man who died in custody at the Shah Alam court complex pressed for an inquest through their lawyers, noting that the post-mortem gave the cause as a heart condition despite no family history, and stating that "as this is a custodial death which would mean that an inquest is mandatory under the Criminal Procedure Code" they called on the Coroner or Public Prosecutor to commence proceedings immediately.

Two further routes to an inquest:

• s.339 empowers the Public Prosecutor to require an inquiry to be held.
• A Magistrate is obliged to hold an inquest where a person dies in circumstances raising doubt, read with ss.328 and 329.

A criticism worth knowing. MADPET and others have called for s.334 to be amended to cover deaths by police shooting, and for the words "if he thinks expedient" — which make the inquest discretionary in non-police-custody cases — to be removed.

2. What an inquest actually is

An inquest is an official and public inquiry into the cause of a sudden, unnatural, unexplained or violent death, conducted by a Magistrate sitting as Coroner. It is not a trial, and it produces a finding and verdict, not a judgment.

What the Coroner must determine. Under s.328, cause of death is not limited to the post-mortem finding. It covers all matters necessary to form an opinion as to the manner in which the deceased came by his death, and as to whether the death resulted in any way from, or was accelerated by, any unlawful act or omission on the part of any other person.

That last clause is the heart of it for a family. The question is not only what the body shows, but whether anyone's act or omission caused or accelerated the death.

Procedure:

• Governed by Chapter XXXII CPC and supplemented by Practice Note 2/2019 (and Practice Direction No. 1 of 2007)
• Held in open court, unless the Magistrate exercises discretion to exclude the public on special grounds of public policy and expediency
• The Coroner should examine the body, though there is authority that an inquest may be held without the body being viewed (Re Inquest Into The Death of Lim Chin Aik [2014] 1 CLJ 136)
• Document discovery is provided for — see Practice Direction guidance and Kaliamah Rajan & Others v Ketua Polis Daerah Tampin [2020] 9 CLJ 252
• A witness may decline to answer self-incriminating questions
• The Coroner may return an open verdict where the cause cannot be determined — as happened in the R. Gunasegaran inquest

Two things happen in parallel, and the Malaysian Bar has set this out clearly: the Coroner determines the cause of death, and separately the police continue a criminal investigation with a view to identifying and prosecuting. A death in custody is referred to the Coroner, not to the Attorney General; the Public Prosecutor comes into the picture after the Coroner submits the report.

3. The post-mortem

The framework:

• s.329 — police investigation into the death
• s.330 — duty of the investigating officer to arrange for an autopsy, with an exemption where the deceased came by death by accident
• s.107A — duty to inform next of kin
• s.331 — the autopsy is mandatory and performed by a Government Medical Officer
• s.332 — the GMO's autopsy report

Practitioner commentary notes that failure to conduct the autopsy carries no legal penalty, but is regarded as a serious non-compliance with the CPC and produces damaging evidence at inquest — the Sujatha Krishnan inquest is cited as the example.

What a family should do:

• Request the post-mortem report in writing. Keep proof of the request.
• Consider a second, independent post-mortem before burial or cremation if you have any doubt. Take legal advice urgently — this option disappears.
• If you are told the death was from natural causes but the deceased had no relevant medical history, say so in writing and record it. That discrepancy is what families have relied on to press for inquests.

4. The oversight bodies — and what each can actually do

Be aware of a jurisdictional argument. Some have argued that because s.334 makes custodial death a matter for the Coroner's Court, other bodies should stay out — one group urged SUHAKAM not to investigate on that basis, arguing a SUHAKAM investigation could not deliver justice and no follow-up action could be taken on its findings. Others have demanded exactly the opposite, calling for public inquiries led by SUHAKAM and the EAIC. Both positions have been argued publicly; a family can complain to more than one body and should not be deterred by this dispute.

5. The IPCMC / IPCC story, told straight

This is contested, and we are setting out both sides.

What happened:

• 2005 — the Royal Commission to Enhance the Operation and Management of the Royal Malaysian Police (the Dzaiddin Commission) recommended an IPCMC with disciplinary powers
• 2019 — an IPCMC Bill was presented for tabling
• August 2020 — the IPCC Bill was tabled instead
• 26 July 2022 — Parliament passed the IPCC Bill
• July 2023 — the IPCC Act 2022 came into force

The criticism. The Malaysian Bar called on the Government to substantially amend the IPCC Act to incorporate provisions found in the IPCMC Bill — including granting disciplinary powers to the IPCC — before implementing it. C4 Center described the IPCC Bill as a watered-down version of the 2019 IPCMC Bill, which was itself watered down from the 2005 Royal Commission recommendations. Civil society organisations called for the Bill to be shelved. Commentary has described the IPCC as lacking the authority to uphold police accountability.

On the police's own unit. Civil society acknowledged the establishment of the USJKT death-in-custody investigation unit, but argued the only visible change was that it promptly issues public statements when deaths occur, while investigations continue to be carried out by the police themselves.

The case for the current arrangement, stated fairly: the IPCC does exist, does have a statutory mandatory-referral duty for deaths and serious injuries in custody, and is a body that did not exist before July 2023. Its supporters would say oversight has to be built incrementally and that a body with disciplinary powers over a disciplined force raises genuine constitutional and operational questions.

We are not adjudicating this. It is a live public debate.

6. The numbers

Handle these carefully — they come from different bodies using different definitions over different periods, and are not comparable to each other.

• SUARAM's annual human rights reports cumulatively documented approximately 203 deaths in and under police custody from 2011 to 2022
• Civil society statements reported 12 deaths in police custody within the first eleven weeks of 2022 in one statement, and 19 deaths within the first 11 weeks of 2022 in another — the two figures conflict and we have not been able to reconcile them
• SUARAM's Human Rights Report 2024 notes that between January 2022 and April 2023, Bukit Aman's USJKT handled 32 cases, comprising 17 deaths in police custody and 15 others
• A minister reported that six cases had been referred to the coroners' court, with four in the midst of inquest proceedings and two pending

The recurring complaint from families and NGOs is not primarily about the numbers. It is that reasons for deaths remain unknown, investigation progress is not revealed, and inquests are delayed — sometimes for years.

What a family should actually do

In the first days: 1. Get a lawyer. This is the single most important step. Bar Council Legal Aid Centres (malaysianbar.org.my) can assist; NGOs including SUARAM and EDICT have experience supporting families. 2. Do not consent to burial or cremation without legal advice. A second post-mortem is only possible before that. 3. Request the post-mortem report in writing. 4. Ask which Magistrate was notified under s.334, and when. The notification is supposed to be immediate. 5. Photograph the body if you are permitted to view it. Note every mark. 6. Record everything: names of officers, times, what you were told and by whom, the exact words used. 7. Do not sign documents you have not read or do not understand.

Then: 8. Press for the inquest. For a death in police custody it is mandatory under s.334. Your lawyer can write to the Coroner and to the Public Prosecutor, who may require an inquiry under s.339. 9. Complain to the IPCC — the police are required to refer deaths in custody, but you can complain directly. ipcc.gov.my 10. Complain to SUHAKAM — suhakam.org.my 11. Ask for document discovery at the inquest. There is authority supporting it. 12. Attend the inquest. It is held in open court unless excluded. Your lawyer can participate. 13. Consider a civil claim. Malaysian courts have awarded damages in custodial cases — see (Three Years. That's The Number That Decides Whether PDRM Can Arrest You Without A Warrant.) for reported figures in false imprisonment cases.

Look after yourselves. This process is long and it is exhausting. Talian Kasih 15999, Talian HEAL 15555, Befrienders KL 03-7627 2929.