Federal Court may authorise General Manager to take certain action
202 Federal Court may authorise General Manager to take certain action
Where an application for an inquiry has been lodged with the Federal Court under section 200, the Court may authorise the General Manager to take any action referred to in subsection (2).
If the General Manager is authorised for the purposes of subsection (1), the General Manager may take the following actions:
inspecting election documents;
for the purposes of any such inspection, entering, with such assistance as the General Manager considers necessary, any premises used or occupied by the organisation, or a branch of the organisation, concerned in which the General Manager believes election documents to be;
giving a written notice to a person requiring the person to deliver to the General Manager, within the period and in the manner specified in the notice, any election documents in the possession or under the control of the person;
taking possession of any election documents;
retaining any election documents delivered to the General Manager, or of which the General Manager has taken possession, for such period as is necessary for the purposes of the application and, if proceedings under this Part arise out of the application, until the completion of the proceedings or such earlier time as the Court orders.
Before authorising any action under subsection (1), the Court must, if it considers that, having regard to all the circumstances, a person should be given an opportunity of objecting to the proposed action, give such an opportunity to the person.
The period specified in a notice given under paragraph (2)(c) must specify a period of at least 14 days after the notice is given.
A person commits an offence if the person:
contravenes a requirement made under paragraph (2)(c); or
hinders or obstructs the General Manager, or a person acting on the General Manager’s behalf, in the exercise of powers under subsection (2).
Penalty: 30 penalty units.
Strict liability applies to paragraph (5)(a).
For strict liability, see section 6.1 of the Criminal Code.
Paragraph (5)(a) does not apply if the person has a reasonable excuse.
A defendant bears an evidential burden in relation to the matter mentioned in subsection (7), see subsection 13.3(3) of the Criminal Code.
A person is not excused from producing an election document under this section on the ground that the production of the document might tend to incriminate the person or expose the person to a penalty.
However:
producing the document; or
any information, document or thing obtained as a direct or indirect consequence of producing the document;
is not admissible in evidence against the person in criminal proceedings or proceedings that may expose the person to a penalty.
In this section:
election documents, in relation to an election, means ballot papers, envelopes, lists or other documents that have been used in, or are relevant to, the election.
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