Portugal
Forensic science in Portugal
One State Laboratory carrying both forensic medicine and forensic science, acting within the administration of justice rather than within a police force.
Facts verified:
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Forensic work in Portugal is concentrated in the Instituto Nacional de Medicina Legal e Ciências Forenses, which describes itself as “o Laboratório do Estado com funções periciais, médico-legais e forenses que atua no âmbito da administração da justiça” — the State Laboratory with expert, medico-legal and forensic functions, acting within the administration of justice.
AnalysisThe name is not decorative. Medicina legal and ciências forenses are carried by the same institute, so the pathologist who performs a medico-legal autopsy and the scientist who examines a toxicological sample belong to one body. In several systems on this site those two functions sit in entirely different institutions, and the Portuguese arrangement is the clearer illustration of why “forensics” is not one profession.
The services the institute lists to the public show the same breadth: medico-legal autopsy, examination of a body and exhumation; assessment of bodily harm; paternity examination; insertion of a genetic profile into the DNA profile database; toxicological examination; and forensic psychiatry or psychology.
Sources
Sources
Instituto Nacional de Medicina Legal e Ciências Forenses
Instituto Nacional de Medicina Legal e Ciências Forenses (Portugal) · Institutional (self-description) · link verified 2026-09-18
SCOPE: the INMLCF only. The institute's own front page, read directly in Portuguese. Supports its self-description as “o Laboratório do Estado com funções periciais, médico-legais e forenses que atua no âmbito da administração da justiça” — the State Laboratory with expert, medico-legal and forensic functions acting within the administration of justice — and that the services it offers include medico-legal autopsy, bodily-harm assessment, paternity examination, insertion of a genetic profile in the DNA profile database, toxicological examination and forensic psychiatry or psychology. It establishes nothing about the criminal police forces' own technical capability.