Commonwealth Numbered Acts

PROCEEDS OF CRIME ACT 1987 No. 87, 1987 - SECT 37

37. (1) Where, by reason of circumstances of urgency, a police officer
considers it necessary to do so, the police officer may make application for a
search warrant under section 36 to a magistrate, by telephone, in accordance
with this section.

(2) Before making the application, the police officer shall prepare an
information of a kind referred to in subsection 36 (1) or (3), but may, if it
is necessary to do so, make the application before the information has been
sworn.

(3) Where a magistrate is, upon application made pursuant to subsection (1),
satisfied:

   (a)  after having considered the terms of the information prepared in
        accordance with subsection (2); and

   (b)  after having received such further information (if any) as the
        magistrate requires concerning the grounds on which the issue of the
        warrant is being sought; that there are reasonable grounds for issuing
        the warrant, the magistrate shall complete and sign such a search
        warrant as the magistrate would have issued under section 36 if the
        application had been made to the magistrate in accordance with that
        section.

(4) Where a magistrate signs a warrant under subsection (3):

   (a)  the magistrate shall inform the police officer of the terms of the
        warrant and the date on which and the time at which it was signed, and
        record on the warrant the reasons for granting the warrant; and

   (b)  the police officer shall complete a form of warrant in the terms
        furnished to the police officer by the magistrate and write on it the
        name of the magistrate and the date on which and the time at which the
        warrant was signed.

(5) Where a police officer completes a form of warrant in accordance with
subsection (4), the police officer shall, not later than the day next
following the date of the execution of the warrant or the expiry of the
warrant, whichever is earlier, give the magistrate who signed the warrant the
form of warrant completed by the police officer and the information duly sworn
in connection with the warrant.

(6) Upon receipt of the documents referred to in subsection (5), the
magistrate shall attach to them the warrant signed by the magistrate and deal
with the documents in the manner in which the magistrate would have dealt with
the information if the application for the warrant had been made in accordance
with section 36.

(7) A form of warrant duly completed by a police officer in accordance with
subsection (4) is, if it is in accordance with the terms of the warrant signed
by the magistrate, authority for any search, entry or seizure that the warrant
so signed authorises.

(8) Where it is material, in any proceedings, for a court to be satisfied that
a search, entry or seizure was authorised in accordance with this section, and
the warrant signed by a magistrate in accordance with this section authorising
the search, entry or seizure is not produced in evidence, the court shall
assume, unless the contrary is proved, that the search, entry or seizure was
not authorised by such a warrant.
(9) In this section, "magistrate" does not include a person by virtue only of
the person being a justice of the peace.