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Armed Forces Discipline Act 1971

Offences - Parties, accessories, and attempts

77: Accessories after the fact

You could also call this:

"Helping someone who broke the law to escape or avoid arrest"

Illustration for Armed Forces Discipline Act 1971

You commit an offence if you help someone who has done something wrong under this Act. If the punishment for what they did is imprisonment for life, you could go to prison for up to 7 years. If the punishment for what they did is imprisonment for 10 or more years, you could go to prison for up to 5 years. You are an accessory after the fact if you know someone has done something wrong and you help them escape or avoid arrest. This means you do things like hide them, make them feel better, or get rid of evidence against them. You do these things so they can get away after being arrested or so they do not get arrested or found guilty. If you are married or in a civil union and your spouse or partner has done something wrong, you are not an accessory after the fact if you help them. This is only if you help them so they can escape or avoid arrest, and you do it because they are your spouse or partner.

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View the original legislation for this page at https://legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1986/0120/latest/link.aspx?id=DLM402791.

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76: Attempts to commit offences against this Act, or

"Trying to Break the Law in the Armed Forces"

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"Court Martial has the power to try you for breaking military rules"

Part 2Offences
Parties, accessories, and attempts

77Accessories after the fact

  1. Every person subject to this Act commits an offence who is an accessory after the fact to any other offence against this Act, and—

  2. if the maximum punishment for that other offence is imprisonment for life, is liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 7 years, and, if the maximum punishment for that other offence is imprisonment for 10 or more years, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 5 years; and
    1. in any other case, is liable to not more than half the maximum to which he could have been liable if he had committed that other offence.

      1. For the purposes of this section, an accessory after the fact to an offence is one who, knowing any person to have been a party to the offence, receives, comforts, or assists that person or tampers with or actively suppresses any evidence against him, in order to enable him to escape after arrest or to avoid arrest or conviction.

      2. No person subject to this Act who is married or in a civil union and whose spouse or civil union partner has been a party to an offence becomes an accessory after the fact to that offence by doing any act to which this section applies in order to enable the spouse or civil union partner (or the spouse, civil union partner, and any other person who has been a party to the offence) to escape after arrest or to avoid arrest or conviction.

      Notes
      • Section 77(1)(a): amended, on , by section 5(7) of the Abolition of the Death Penalty Act 1989 (1989 No 119).
      • Section 77(3): substituted, on , by section 7 of the Relationships (Statutory References) Act 2005 (2005 No 3).