Search and Surveillance Act 2012

Enforcement officers' powers and orders - Production orders

72: Conditions for making production order

You could also call this:

"When can police make someone hand over documents to help solve a crime?"

Illustration for Search and Surveillance Act 2012

To make a production order, you need to have reasonable grounds to suspect that a crime has been, is being, or will be committed. This crime must be one that allows an enforcement officer to apply for a search warrant under this Act or another law listed in Schedule 2. You also need to believe that the documents you are looking for are evidence of the crime and that the person you are making the order against has them, will get them, or can control them while the order is in force. You have to think that these documents will help prove the crime happened. The documents must be something the person against whom the order is made has now or will have soon.

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This page was last updated on 4 August 2025

View the original legislation for this page at https://legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1986/0120/latest/link.aspx?id=DLM2136747.

Topics:

Crime and justice > Criminal lawCrime and justice > Police and safetyRights and equality > Privacy

71: Enforcement officer may apply for production order, or

"An enforcement officer can ask for a court order to get documents related to a crime."

73: Other provisions that apply to production order applications, or

"Rules that also apply when asking for a production order"

Part 3Enforcement officers' powers and orders
Production orders

72Conditions for making production order

The conditions for making a production order are that there are reasonable grounds—
to suspect that an offence has been committed, or is being committed, or will be committed (being an offence in respect of which this Act or any enactment specified in column 2 of Schedule 2 authorises an enforcement officer to apply for a search warrant); and
to believe that the documents sought by the proposed order—
1. constitute evidential material in respect of the offence; and
2. are in the possession or under the control of the person against whom the order is sought, or will come into his or her possession or under his or her control while the order is in force.

Notes

Section 72(a): amended, on 31 July 2025, by section 27(1) of the Budapest Convention and Related Matters Legislation Amendment Act 2025 (2025 No 39).