Commonwealth Numbered Regulations - Explanatory Statements

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NATIONAL CRIME AUTHORITY REGULATIONS (AMENDMENT) 1996 NO. 286

Statutory Rules 1996 No. 286

Issued by the Authority of the Attorney-General and Minister for Justice

National Crime Authority Act 1984

National Crime Authority Regulations (Amendment)

Section 62 of the National Crime Authority Act 1984 (the Act) provides that the GovernorGeneral may make regulations prescribing all matters necessary or convenient to be prescribed for carrying out or giving effect to the Act.

The amendments to the National Crime Authority Regulations (the regulations) are set out below.

Regulation 1

Regulation 1 gives effect to these regulations.

Regulation 2

Subregulation 2.1 amends Schedule 1 of the regulations by omitting Form 1 and substituting a revised form. The amendments to Form 1 will ensure that warrants issued under section 22 contain the information required by subsection 22(5). Section 22 does not permit the issue of a "general warrant". A person executing the warrant is only authorised under it to seize the kinds of things stated in it which are connected with a relevant criminal activity. On at least one occasion a court has held a section 22 warrant to be invalid because it did not outline the relevant criminal activity with sufficient particularity to enable the person executing the warrant to determine whether the necessary connection exists between the things particularised in the warrant, on the one hand, and the relevant criminal activity, on the other.

The proposed regulations add two schedules to Form 1. One of the schedules requires a description of the things that may be seized by the executing officer to be inserted in. the warrant. The other schedule requires a statement of the purpose for which the warrant is issued, including the relevant criminal activity which the NCA is investigating and details of the reference to the NCA.

Subregulation 2.2 amends Schedule 1 of the regulations by omitting Form 4 and substituting a revised form. The amended Form 4 provides for all three situations in which a judge of a prescribed court is authorised to issue an arrest warrant under subsection 30(1) of the Act. At present the form of warrant prescribed in Form 4 allows for only one of these situations.