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Lawyers and Conveyancers Act 2006

Complaints and discipline - Intervention in practice

176: Powers and duties of Standards Committee in relation to documents and records

You could also call this:

"What the Standards Committee can do with documents and records"

Illustration for Lawyers and Conveyancers Act 2006

You are part of a Standards Committee. It gets documents from people. If the documents belong to someone else, the Committee must hold them. The Committee holds them until a court decides what to do or a certain time passes. When that happens, the Committee must give the documents back to the person who owns them. The Committee can also change records to make sure everything is correct. It can ask a court for help if it needs to. The Committee can return records and documents to the people it got them from. But it must follow any court orders or demands from owners. While the Committee has the documents, it has the right to keep them, not the person who gave them. The Committee has these powers because of sections 169 to 172. You can read more about this in sections 169 to 172 and section 180.

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View the original legislation for this page at https://legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1986/0120/latest/link.aspx?id=DLM366719.

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Part 7Complaints and discipline
Intervention in practice

176Powers and duties of Standards Committee in relation to documents and records

  1. Where a Standards Committee, in exercising in relation to a practitioner or former practitioner or related person or entity any of its powers under sections 169 to 172, receives any documents belonging to a person other than the practitioner or former practitioner or related person or entity, those documents must be held by the Standards Committee until—

  2. any application made under section 180 and relating to those documents is disposed of by the High Court; or
    1. if no application relating to those documents is made under section 180, the expiration of the time allowed for making such an application.

      1. Thereafter, subject to any order made by the High Court on an application under section 180, the documents must, on demand made by the person to whom the documents belong, be delivered by the Standards Committee to that person or to such other person as that person may direct in writing.

      2. Where a Standards Committee, in exercising in relation to a practitioner or former practitioner or related person or entity any of its powers under sections 169 to 172, obtains any records, it may, for the purpose of ascertaining the true position concerning any trust account of the practitioner or former practitioner or any related person or entity, or any money or other property entrusted to the practitioner or former practitioner or any related person or entity, cause such entries as may be necessary to be made in those records, or cause any entries in those records to be amended.

      3. A Standards Committee may at any time apply to the High Court for directions concerning any documents or records obtained by the Committee in the exercise of any of its powers under sections 169 to 172.

      4. A Standards Committee may at any time in its discretion return any records or documents obtained by the Committee in the exercise of any of its powers under sections 169 to 172 to the person or persons from whom those records or documents were received.

      5. Subsection (5) is subject to—

      6. any lawful demand made under subsection (2); and
        1. any order made by the High Court under any provision of this Part.

          1. While any documents are in the possession of a Standards Committee pursuant to the powers conferred on it by sections 169 to 172, any lien or right to a lien which, but for this section, could be exercised by the practitioner or former practitioner or any related person or entity enures for the benefit of the Standards Committee to the exclusion of the practitioner or former practitioner or related person or entity.

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