PROTECTION OF MOVABLE CULTURAL HERITAGE ACT 1986 - SECT 31 Search warrants granted by telephone

PROTECTION OF MOVABLE CULTURAL HERITAGE ACT 1986 - SECT 31

  (1)   Where, by reason of circumstances of urgency, an inspector considers it necessary to do so, the inspector may make application for a search warrant to a Magistrate, by telephone, in accordance with this section.

  (2)   Before so making application, an inspector shall prepare an information of a kind referred to in subsection   30(1) that sets out the grounds on which the issue of the warrant is being sought, 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 under subsection   (1), satisfied:

  (a)   after having considered the terms of the information prepared in accordance with subsection   (1); 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 issue under section   30 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 inspector 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 inspector shall complete a form of warrant in the terms furnished 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 an inspector completes a form of warrant in accordance with subsection   (4), the inspector shall, not later than the day next following the date of expiry of the warrant, forward to the Magistrate who signed the warrant the form of warrant completed by the inspector 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   30.

  (7)   A form of warrant duly completed by an inspector 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.