Commonwealth Consolidated Acts Commonwealth Consolidated Acts (1)
Where, by reason of circumstances of urgency, a police officer
considers it necessary to do so, the police officer may make application for a
search warrant under section 36 to a magistrate, by telephone, in
accordance with this section.
(2)
Before making the application, the police officer shall prepare an
information of a kind referred to in subsection 36(1) or (3), but may, if it
is necessary to do so, make the application before the information has been
sworn.
(3)
Where a magistrate is, upon application made pursuant to
subsection (1), satisfied:
(a) after having considered the terms of the information prepared in
accordance with subsection (2); and
(b) after having received such further information (if any) as the
magistrate requires concerning the grounds on which the issue of the warrant
is being sought;
that there are reasonable grounds for issuing the warrant,
the magistrate shall complete and sign such a search warrant as the magistrate
would have issued under section 36 if the application had been made to
the magistrate in accordance with that section.
(4)
Where a magistrate signs a warrant under subsection (3):
(a) the magistrate shall inform the police officer of the terms of the
warrant and the date on which and the time at which it was signed, and record
on the warrant the reasons for granting the warrant; and
(b) the police officer shall complete a form of warrant in the terms
furnished to the police officer by the magistrate and write on it the name of
the magistrate and the date on which and the time at which the warrant was
signed.
(5)
Where a police officer completes a form of warrant in accordance with
subsection (4), the police officer shall, not later than the day next
following the date of the execution of the warrant or the expiry of the
warrant, whichever is earlier, give the magistrate who signed the warrant the
form of warrant completed by the police officer and the information duly sworn
in connection with the warrant.
(6)
Upon receipt of the documents referred to in subsection (5), the
magistrate shall attach to them the warrant signed by the magistrate and deal
with the documents in the manner in which the magistrate would have dealt with
the information if the application for the warrant had been made in accordance
with section 36.
(7)
A form of warrant duly completed by a police officer in accordance with
subsection (4) is, if it is in accordance with the terms of the warrant
signed by the magistrate, authority for any search, entry or seizure that the
warrant so signed authorises.
(8)
Where it is material, in any proceedings, for a court to be satisfied
that a search, entry or seizure was authorised in accordance with this
section, and the warrant signed by a magistrate in accordance with this
section authorising the search, entry or seizure is not produced in evidence,
the court shall assume, unless the contrary is proved, that the search, entry
or seizure was not authorised by such a warrant.
(9)
In this section, magistrate does not include a person by virtue only of
the person being a justice of the peace.