Criminal Code Act 1983

This Act may be cited as the Criminal Code Act 1983.

Subject to subsection (2), this Act shall come into operation on a date to be fixed by the Administrator by notice in the Gazette.

Sections 406 to and including 431 of the Code shall not come into operation on the date fixed under subsection (1) unless the notice fixing that date expressly provides that those sections shall so come into operation, but the Administrator may, by a subsequent notice in the Gazette, fix the date on which those sections should come into operation and they shall come into operation accordingly.

In this Act, the Code means the Code of criminal law contained in Schedule I.

For the purposes of the Interpretation Act 1978, the Code shall be construed as if it were a separate Act.

On and from the commencement of the respective Parts of the Code, those Parts shall be the law of the Territory in respect of the various matters therein dealt with.

Subject to section 12 of the Interpretation Act 1978, no person is liable to be tried or punished in the Territory in respect of a matter dealt with in the Code except in accordance with the Code or another law of the Territory.

Where an offender is punishable under the Code or another law of the Territory, a person may be prosecuted and found guilty either under the Code or that other law.

Subject to subsection (2), this Act or the Code does not affect the authority of a court of record to punish a person summarily for the offence commonly known as Contempt of Court.

A person shall not be punished under subsection (1) and under the Code for the same act or omission.

Schedule I Criminal Code of the Northern Territory of Australia

section 4

Part I Introductory matters

Division 1 Definitions:

Commission of offence: division of offences: attempts

Harm is physical harm or harm to a person's mental health, whether temporary or permanent.

Physical harm includes unconsciousness, pain, disfigurement, infection with a disease and any physical contact with a person that a person might reasonably object to in the circumstances, whether or not the person was aware of it at the time.

Harm to a person's mental health includes significant psychological harm, but does not include mere ordinary emotional reactions such as those of only distress, grief, fear or anger.

Harm does not include being subjected to any force or impact that is within the limits of what is acceptable as incidental to social interaction or to life in the community.

A person against whom an offence may be committed under this Code is a person who has been born and who has not already died.

For the purposes of this Part, an offence is committed when a person who possesses any mental element that may be prescribed with respect to that offence does, makes or causes the act, omission or event, or the series or combination of the same, constituting the offence in circumstances where the act, omission or event, or each of them, if there is more than one, is not authorized or justified.