The inquest of Diana, Princess of Wales, and Dodi Fayed was conducted with impeccable good sense and good humour by the coroner, Lord Justice Scott Baker. It arrived at the obviously correct result: that the deaths were caused by the grossly negligent driving of the drunken Henri Paul, and the conduct of the chasing pack of journalists. But the law needs amendment to ensure that there is never again such an unnecessary and expensive intrusion into privacy and dignity.

The coroner has a duty to hold an inquest whenever a dead body is within this jurisdiction and there is reasonable cause to suspect that the deceased has, here or abroad, died a violent or an unnatural death, died a sudden death for which the cause is unknown, or died in a prison or similar institution. It is irrelevant whether the cause of death has already been investigated abroad, or whether the cause of the unnatural death is plain and obvious, or that many years have passed.

The Helen Smith case established the legal obligation to hold an inquest even where the death occurred abroad. In 1979 Ms Smith was employed as a nurse at a hospital in Jedda, Saudi Arabia. She was found dead in highly suspicious circumstances. Her body was brought back to this country.

Her father, Ronald Smith, challenged the refusal of the coroner to inquire into the circumstances of the death. In 1982 the Court of Appeal, reversing the decision of the Divisional Court, held by a majority of 2:1 that where the body of a person who had died a violent or unnatural death abroad is brought to this country, a coroner is obliged to conduct an inquest.

In the Court of Appeal, Simon Brown (now Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood), acting as a friend of the court (because the coroner was not represented), unsuccessfully submitted that for there to be a duty to hold an inquest whenever a dead body is brought into the jurisdiction after a premature death abroad would have “radical and dramatic” consequences. A coroner, he pointed out, “might be obliged to hold an inquest into the death of Tutankhamun, while his remains lay within the United Kingdom, if it was thought that he had died a violent or unnatural death”.

The law needs amendment to allow the coroner a discretionary power to decide whether an inquest is required when the person concerned died abroad and the body is brought back to this country. If such a discretion were to exist, two main factors would need to be assessed in cases such as that of the Princess and Dodi Fayed.

The first is whether and to what extent there had already been an adequate investigation in the country where the death occurred. Last year, the European Court of Human Rights rejected as manifestly ill-founded a claim by Mohamed Al Fayed, the father of Dodi, that the conduct of the French investigations into the deaths amounted to a breach of Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which requires that any suspicious death be properly investigated. The court noted that “numerous investigative measures had been taken” and that Mr Al Fayed’s complaints “did not suffice to show that there were shortcomings in the investigation or any impediment preventing the circumstances of the death of the applicant’s son from being elucidated”.

The second factor to be taken into account would be the cost of holding an inquest in this country — not just the financial expense of the hearing but also the pain caused to family and friends by picking over the bones of a deceased’s romantic attachments, what contraception she used and the content of her private correspondence.

If the law had conferred a discretion on the coroner, it is inconceivable that he would have thought it appropriate to order a further inquiry into the deaths of the Princess and Mr Fayed. The courts have more important tasks to perform than giving a platform to Mr Al Fayed’s ridiculous assertions that they died because the Duke of Edinburgh was a racist, the Prince of Wales wanted to be left alone with his new “crocodile wife”, Camilla Parker Bowles and a large number of others (from Prime Minister Tony Blair to the Princess’ sister, Lady Sarah McCorquodale) participated in a conspiracy to kill. As Lord Justice Scott Baker drily observed while Mr Al Fayed was giving his evidence, “there were a lot of people in this plot”.

The law relating to inquests is an antiquated mess, much in need of general reform. Parliament should start by abandoning the patronising assumption that foreigners cannot ever be relied on properly to investigate a death occurring in their jurisdiction. Coroners should be permitted to decide that where the cause of a death abroad has already been adequately investigated, the deceased should be allowed to rest in peace.

The author is a practising barrister at Blackstone Chambers and a Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford

Times Recommends

• BGC 'set aside £40m to lure Tullett brokers'
• Legal aid review to ensure value
• Fears as 21 magistrates' courts face closure