Medical documentation may be critical to legal investigations of torture through the following means:
- Producing a contemporaneous record (a record as close in time as possible to the event) of signs and symptoms of ill-treatment when an individual presents to any health professional for treatment after the event – the examining health professional may not be called upon to produce a report, but in the future an expert may be asked to use this record to form an opinion of events at the time
- Providing detailed understanding of the case so that the person can be referred for the appropriate treatment and rehabilitation in a specialised centre or by other specialists
- The production of a medico-legal report for submission to a judicial or administrative body:
- for judicial enquiries or court cases aimed at the prosecution of perpetrators
- for a judicial process which decides on the responsibility of the state
- for a judicial process which decides upon compensation/reparations for survivors
- in individual cases where a medico-legal report may be used as part of a court application to end on-going abuse while the person is still in detention
- for the case of asylum seekers when medical evidence may be used as part of the evidence (e.g. in hearings) to show a history of ill-treatment in another country and the physical and psychological consequences thereof.
- The documentation of patterns of widespread abuse. Courts, NGOs, and inter-governmental mechanisms, can all have need for knowledge of the existence of widespread abuse. Assessment of the prevalence of torture and other ill-treatment, relies upon well-documented individual allegations
- The production of supporting material during visits to places of detention. Medical documentation may not necessarily lead to the production of a medico-legal report on specific cases, but the medical findings can be used more generally to support allegations of conditions and treatment amounting to torture or other ill-treatment.