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Animal Welfare Act 1999

Use of animals in research, testing, and teaching - Reviews of code holders and animal ethics committees

117: Power of Minister to commission review

You could also call this:

"The Minister can ask for a review to check if someone is treating animals fairly and following the rules."

The Minister can ask someone to review a code holder or an animal ethics committee if they think they might not be following the Animal Welfare Act or its rules. You can think of the Minister like a person in charge who wants to make sure everyone is doing the right thing. The Minister gets to decide what the reviewer should look at during the review.

The Minister can choose someone to do the review, and the government will pay for it. The reviewer will look at the code holder or animal ethics committee to see if they are doing things correctly. The Minister's decision to do a review is important, and it can happen even if other parts of the Act say something different.

The same rules that apply to someone called an accredited reviewer will also apply to the person doing the review, but with some changes. This means that when the rules talk about the Director-General, they will really be talking about the Minister in this case, and the rules in sections 100 to 114 and sections 115 and 116 will be used to guide the review.

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View the original legislation for this page at https://legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1986/0120/latest/link.aspx?id=DLM51243.

Topics:
Environment and resources > Farming and fishingHealth and wellbeing > Public health
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116: Level of compliance, or

"How well you follow the animal welfare rules"

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118: Power of Minister to approve research or testing, or

"The Minister can allow animal research without extra approval if it helps New Zealand."

Part 6Use of animals in research, testing, and teaching
Reviews of code holders and animal ethics committees

117Power of Minister to commission review

  1. Where the Minister has reasonable grounds to believe that a code holder or an animal ethics committee may not be complying with this Act or any regulations made under this Act or the relevant code of ethical conduct, the Minister may, at the Crown's expense, appoint a person to make an independent review of that code holder or that animal ethics committee or both.

  2. The Minister may determine the terms of reference for the review.

  3. This section has effect despite anything in sections 100 to 114.

  4. Sections 115 and 116 apply, with all necessary modifications, in relation to a person appointed under this section,—

  5. as if that person were an accredited reviewer to whom section 115 applies; and
    1. as if, for the expression Director-General wherever it appears in those sections, there were substituted in each case the word Minister.