Breach of the Code of Conduct by a police officer applying for an Authority to Conduct a Controlled Operation under the Law Enforcement (Controlled Operations) Act 1997 does not automatically invalidate the Authority. The Act's structure — conditioning validity on the chief executive officer's satisfaction about limited matters, backed by a conclusive certificate, and providing disciplinary consequences for Code breaches — indicates that the legislation does not express a purpose that Code breaches should spell invalidity. Appellate review of a trial judge's exercise of the s138 Evidence Act discretion to admit evidence is constrained by House v The King principles, and disagreement with the weight given to statutory criteria is not a permissible ground of appeal.
The full text is available to signed-in members, including the 13 later cases that cite this judgment.
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