BETWEEN STETHOSCOPE AND STATUTE: WHO COUNTS AS MEDICO-LEGAL EXPERT IN MALAYSIA
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.35631/IJLGC.1143019Keywords:
Medical Law, Medico-legal Expertise, Healthcare Governance, Professional Regulation, Subject-Matter ExpertAbstract
Doctors in Malaysia regularly provide expert opinions to courts, regulators, and healthcare institutions, yet there is no structured mechanism for recognising or validating medico-legal expertise. Because medical law is not recognised as a clinical specialty under the Medical Act 1971 [Act 50], medico-legal competence develops outside the statutory specialist framework. This creates a recognition gap in which legitimacy, scope, and accountability remain unclear. This paper argues that treating medico-legal practice as a missing specialty misdiagnoses the problem. Specialist recognition is designed to validate clinical competence in therapeutic decision-making. Medico-legal work, by contrast, concerns accountability, regulatory interpretation, and institutional decision-making. The difficulty lies not in the absence of title, but in the absence of a governance framework for non-clinical subject-matter expertise. Through comparative analysis and doctrinal examination, the paper identifies structural constraints in current practice, including reliance on ad hoc reputation and case-specific judicial gatekeeping. It distinguishes between clinicians who undertake occasional expert work and practitioners whose roles are predominantly governance-oriented, noting that neither pathway is supported by a standardised validation model. To address this gap, the paper proposes a Subject-Matter Expert (SME) framework based on function rather than status. The framework introduces structured validation, time-limited recognition, defined scope, and independence safeguards. It recommends administrative hosting within the Academy of Medicine of Malaysia to ensure professional oversight without incorporating medico-legal expertise into the National Specialist Register. By prioritising competence and accountability over title creation, the framework offers a governance-based solution that preserves judicial discretion and respects the statutory separation between the medical and legal professions.
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References
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