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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.
(1) Each Act of the State of South Australia specified in Part 1 of Schedule II is, in its application to the Territory, repealed.
The Acts specified in Part 2 of Schedule II are repealed.
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.
(1) Where an act is declared by the Code to be lawful, no action shall be brought in respect of that act.
Subject to subsection (1):
(a) this Act does not affect a right of action that a person would have had against another person if this Act had not been passed; and
(b) no omission from the Code of a penal provision in respect of an act or omission that before the commencement of this Act constituted an actionable wrong affects a right of action in respect of that act or omission.
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.
(1) A person's birth occurs at the time the person is fully removed from the mother's body and has an independent existence from the mother.
(2) The following are relevant, but not determinative, as to whether a person has been born:
the person is breathing;
the person's organs are functioning of their own accord;
the person has an independent circulation of blood.
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.