Criminal Justice (Mutual Assistance) Act 2008

34

Transmission of external freezing orders to State for enforcement.

34.— (1) An external freezing order from a member state and a certificate duly completed and certified as accurate by the issuing judicial authority together with a request or instruction relating to the subsequent treatment of the evidence or property concerned shall, unless otherwise provided by a declaration by the State under Article 4.2 of the F27[2003 Framework Decision], be transmitted to the Central Authority in connection with a request for enforcement of the order.

(2) A request from any other designated state for the enforcement of an external freezing order shall be accompanied by—

(a) a duly certified copy of the order,

(b) a statement of the grounds—

(i) for making the order, and

(ii) for believing that the evidence or property concerned will be subject to an order of confiscation,

and any other information required by the relevant international instrument.

(3) Transmission of the documents mentioned in subsection (1) or (2) shall be by any means capable of producing a written record under conditions which allow the Central Authority or the High Court to establish the documents’ authenticity.

(4) An issuing judicial authority is deemed to have complied with subsection (3) if facsimile copies of the external freezing order, the certificate (where appropriate) and any translation thereof are transmitted in compliance with any regulations that may be made under subsection (6).

(5) If the Central Authority or the High Court is not satisfied that a facsimile copy of a document transmitted in accordance with this section corresponds to the document of which it purports to be such a copy, the Central Authority or the Court shall—

(a) request the issuing judicial authority to cause the original or a copy of the document to be transmitted to the Central Authority, and

(b) agree with that judicial authority on the manner in which the original or copy is to be so transmitted.

(6) The Minister may, if he or she considers it necessary for the purposes of ensuring the accuracy of documents transmitted in accordance with this section, make regulations—

(a) prescribing procedures to be followed in connection with the transmission of documents in accordance with this section, and

(b) specifying features to be present in any equipment being used in that connection.

Annotations

Amendments:

F27

Substituted (1.02.2016) by Criminal Justice (Mutual Assistance) (Amendment) Act 2015 (40/2015), s. 5, S.I. No. 11 of 2016.