Commonwealth Numbered Regulations - Explanatory Statements

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MUTUAL ASSISTANCE IN CRIMINAL MATTERS (SUPPRESSION OF THE FINANCING OF TERRORISM) REGULATIONS 2006 (SLI NO 7 OF 2006)

EXPLANATORY STATEMENT

 

 

Selected Legislative Instrument 2006 No. 7

 

Issued by the authority of the Minister for Justice and Customs

 

Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters Act 1987

 

Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters (Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism) Regulations 2006

Section 44 of the Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters Act 1987 (the Act) provides, in part, that the Governor-General may make regulations, not inconsistent with the Act, prescribing matters required or permitted by the Act to be prescribed, or necessary or convenient to be prescribed for carrying out or giving effect to the Act.

The Act allows for international assistance in criminal matters to be provided and obtained by Australia.  While the Act allows Australia to make requests to and receive requests from all countries, mutual assistance requests are facilitated by treaty arrangements. 

Subsection 7(1) of the Act provides that the Act applies to all foreign countries, but paragraph 7(2)(b) provides that the regulations may provide that the Act applies to a foreign country subject to any multilateral mutual assistance treaty (being a treaty to which that country is a party) that is referred to in the regulations.  Paragraph 7(3)(b) provides that if the regulations provide that the Act applies to a foreign country subject to a treaty which relates in part to the provision of assistance in criminal matters, then the Act applies subject to the limitations, conditions, exceptions or qualifications that are necessary to give effect, in relation to that country, to that part of the treaty that relates to the provision of assistance in criminal matters.

The proposed Regulations apply the Act to a foreign country that is a current State Party to the International Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism (the Convention), subject to the Convention.  This allows Australia to make and receive requests to and from a State Party to the Convention for mutual assistance with an offence in the Convention.  The text of the Convention is included in Schedule 1 the Regulations.

Australia ratified the Convention on 26 October 2002.  The purpose of the Convention is to suppress acts of terrorism by depriving terrorists and terrorist organisations of the financial means to commit such acts.  It does so by obliging State Parties to criminalise and take other measures to prevent the provision or collection of funds for the purpose of committing terrorist acts and to cooperate with other States Parties in the prevention, detection, investigation and prosecution of terrorist financing.

The Convention contains obligations for mutual assistance in criminal matters in Article 12 and 16.  These obligations apply only to other States Parties to the Convention, and the Act does not require that States Parties be specifically named.

The Regulations commenced on the day after they were registered.

The Regulations are a legislative instrument for the purposes of the Legislative Instruments Act 2003.


Details of the Regulations are as follows:

Regulation 1 names the Regulations.

Regulation 2 provides that the Regulations commence on the day after they are registered.

Regulation 3 sets out the definitions used in the regulations.

Regulation 4 applies the Act to the States party to the Convention, subject to the Convention.

Schedule 1 inserts the text of the Convention.

 

 


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