Passports (False Statements and Forgery) (Jersey) Law 201-
Amendments to the draft Law
The Passports (False Statements and Forgery) (Jersey) Law 201- had been lodged for debate by the States on 1 April 2014 as P.14/2014. On 24 March 2014 the Minister attended a Public Hearing with the Education and Home Affairs Scrutiny Panel and as a result of that hearing would like to make a number of amendments to the draft Law.
On the basis that an amendment to a Proposition that has a 6 week lodging period has to be lodged for 2 weeks, the Greffe will be requested to move P.14/2014 from the Order Paper for 1 April to the next sitting on 29 April.
The amendments required are as follows:
Article 1 – Interpretation
Please remove the definition of police officer from this Article. ‘Police officer’ is defined in the Schedule to the Interpretation (Jersey) Law 1954 as meaning a member of the Honorary Police or a member of the States of Jersey Police Force. It is intended that any police officer, whether Honorary or States of Jersey Police will have powers under the Law.
Please remove the definition of “senior officer” from Article 6(5) of the draft Law and include it in Article 1.
Article 2 – Offence of false application for a passport
It is intended that the Law should not only apply to the person who is applying for a passport, but also to any person who makes a false or misleading statement in relation to the application. This would include, for example, the countersignatory.
Article 2(2) refers to ‘the person’, which is taken to mean the applicant. We feel that if this were to be altered to read ‘any person’, this could have the desired effect.
We would also like to remove the words ‘or recklessly’ from paragraphs (2)(a) and (2)(c). The rationale for this is to protect somebody who is asked to be a countersignatory for a passport application and although they have known the person for the requisite amount of time in order to act as the countersignatory, they don’t know the person particularly well but have taken what the applicant has said at face value.
Please note that we are happy for the words ‘or recklessly’ to remain within Article 3(1)(b) and 3(1)(c).
Article 6 – Entry and search without warrant: powers of immigration officer
As detailed in the amendment to Article 1, above, please remove the definition of ‘senior officer’ from this Article and place it in Article 1.
Executive Officer
Home Affairs
24 March 2014