New South Wales Consolidated Acts

APIARIES ACT 1985 - SECT 44

44 Evidentiary provisions

(1) If in any proceedings taken under this Act a person asserts that that person is an inspector, it shall be presumed, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, that that person was duly appointed as an inspector.

(2) A copy of any order, certificate, direction, notice or other instrument made, issued or given for the purposes of this Act purporting to be certified by the Director-General as a true copy of the original instrument is admissible in evidence in any proceedings under this Act to the same extent as that original instrument.

(3) A certificate by the Director-General that:

(a) a specified person is or is not a registered beekeeper or was or was not a registered beekeeper at a specified time,

(b) the keeping of bees or the establishment of an apiary on specified premises is prohibited or was prohibited at a specified time,

(c) a specified area was, at a specified time, declared to be an infected area or that, at a specified time, specified premises were within such an area, or

(d) specified land was, at a specified time, declared to be a quarantine area or a prohibited area under or for the purposes of a specified provision of this Act,

is admissible in evidence in any proceedings under this Act, and, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, shall be proof of its contents.

(4) All judges, magistrates and other persons acting judicially shall take judicial notice of the signature of the Director-General to any certificate issued under subsection (3).

(5) Where in any proceedings it is proved that a beehive containing bees was found on any specified premises at a specified time, it shall be presumed, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, that those bees were kept by the person who was the occupier of those premises at that time.

(6) Where in proceedings taken against a beekeeper for an offence against section 22 it is proved that the bees to which the proceedings relate had been infected with a notifiable disease for a period of 7 days or more, then, for the purposes of those proceedings, it shall be presumed, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, that the beekeeper was at the end of that period aware that the bees were so infected.