Court rejects Euracare’s bid to halt inquest into Adichie’s son’s death

A Lagos State High Court has dismissed Euracare Multi-Specialist Hospital’s attempt to stop an ongoing coroner’s inquest into the death of Nkanu Nnamdi, the son of renowned Nigerian author Chimamanda Adichie.

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Nkanu, 21 months old, died in January at the hospital in circumstances that have raised questions and prompted a coroner’s inquest.

Delivering judgment on Monday, Justice Aishat Opesanwo struck out the hospital’s originating motion for writs of Certiorari and Prohibition, Channels Television reported.

The ruling followed an objection by Ms Adichie and her husband, Ivara Esege, who asked the court to dismiss the suit two weeks earlier.

PREMIUM TIMES earlier reported that the couple’s lawyer, Kemi Pinheiro, argued that the hospital approached the court prematurely. The lawyer said the coroner had not issued any decision that warranted judicial review.

Justice Opesanwo, however, ruled that the hospital’s application was based on a fundamental misunderstanding of the role, powers and operations of a coroner’s court.

Findings

Justice Opesanwo identified several important legal issues in her ruling, including the requirement under Section 15(2) of the Lagos State Coroner’s System Law 2007 for an inquest into a death in custody that occurs in a medical facility.

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She also ruled that the cremation of the child’s remains did not prevent the coroner from investigating the death.

Rejecting the hospital’s position, the judge said jurisdiction depended on the location where the death occurred, rather than the availability of the body at the time of the inquest.

According to her, a coroner’s court investigates to determine who died and the circumstances, time and location of the death. Its purpose is not to conduct a criminal prosecution or civil trial, assign blame or punish anyone.

Justice Opesanwo noted that such proceedings differ from conventional court trials because they do not strictly follow formal rules of evidence or the usual framework for determining the burden of proof.

“A coroner’s inquest is a fact-finding inquiry. It is not a trial. No one is on trial in a coroner’s court. Unlike other courts, whether civil or criminal, there is no claimant, prosecution, or defence,” she said.

She further ruled that the coroner enjoys full statutory discretion over the sequence in which witness statements and evidence are taken and that judicial review cannot be used to truncate a process mandated by state law.

With the court’s dismissal of the application, the coroner’s inquest into the toddler’s death is now expected to proceed formally.

Backstory

Following Nkanu’s death, his parents accused the hospital of medical negligence, alleging that an overdose of sedatives and the withholding of oxygen led to his cardiac arrest, as previously reported by this newspaper.

The hospital rejected the allegations, insisting that the child was in a critical condition on arrival and received treatment in accordance with standard medical protocols.

To investigate the circumstances of the death, the Lagos State Government initiated a coroner’s inquest. The hospital subsequently filed an application at the High Court seeking to suspend the proceedings.

According to the hospital, an inquest conducted without the child’s body for post-mortem analysis would produce speculative findings and unnecessarily consume public funds.

It further argued that requiring its medical staff to give evidence before other proceedings took place breached its right to a fair hearing, as guaranteed by Section 36(1) of the 1999 Constitution.