New South Wales Consolidated Acts

ROAD TRANSPORT (DRIVER LICENSING) ACT 1998 - SECT 24

24 Seizure of driver licences

(1) A police officer or a person authorised in writing by the Authority:

(a) to whom any Australian driver licence, or any article resembling an Australian driver licence, is produced by a person representing it to be the person’s driver licence, and

(b) who reasonably suspects that the licence or article:

(i) has been obtained in contravention of section 22, or

(ii) is unlawfully in the possession of the person who produced it,

may, with no authority other than this section, seize the licence or article.

(2) A person by whom any licence or article is produced as referred to in subsection (1) (a) and who fails to provide, at the request of a police officer or authorised person to whom it was produced (and on being supplied with adequate materials), a specimen of his or her signature is guilty of an offence.

Maximum penalty: 20 penalty units.

(3) The grounds on which a reasonable suspicion, sufficient to authorise a seizure under this section, may be formed include (but are not limited to) any one or more of the following:

(a) a lack of resemblance between the person depicted in a photograph affixed to the Australian driver licence or article, purporting to be a photograph of the holder, and the person who produced the Australian driver licence or article,

(b) a lack of resemblance between a signature inscribed on the Australian driver licence or article, purporting to be the signature of the holder, and a specimen signature provided by the person who produced the Australian driver licence or article,

(c) a refusal by the person, after producing the Australian driver licence or article, to comply with a request under subsection (2).

(4) An Australian driver licence or article seized under this section must be forwarded to the Authority. The Authority may:

(a) return the Australian driver licence to the person who produced it, if it is satisfied that the driver licence was lawfully in the possession of the person who produced it, or

(b) in any other case, deal with it in such manner as it thinks fit.

(5) The holder of a genuine and valid Australian driver licence seized under this section does not commit any offence merely because he or she is not in possession of the licence at any time after the seizure and before the licence is returned.