Summary Offences Act 1981

Introduction

You could also call this:

"Making Rules for Minor Crimes Clearer"

Illustration for Summary Offences Act 1981

This law is about changing and restating the rules for summary offences. You will see changes to the old laws that were in the Police Offences Act 1927. The new law replaces the old one and its amendments to make the rules clearer. The law is trying to make the rules for summary offences easier to understand. It takes the place of the old Police Offences Act 1927 and all the changes that were made to it. You can think of it as a new version of the law that makes things clearer and easier to follow. This change is meant to reform the law, which means it is trying to improve it. The law is restating the rules, which means it is saying them again in a new way. This should make it easier for you to understand what the rules are and what they mean. The old Police Offences Act 1927 is no longer used because this new law replaces it. All the amendments, or changes, that were made to the old law are also replaced by this new law. This means you only need to look at the new law to understand the rules for summary offences. You can look at the new law to see what the rules are for summary offences. It has all the information you need to understand what is expected of you. The law is written to be clear and easy to understand, so you can read it and know what the rules are.

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View the original legislation for this page at https://legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1986/0120/latest/link.aspx?id=DLM53347.

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Highlights from this law




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1: Short Title and commencement, or

"This law is called the Summary Offences Act 1981 and it started on 1 February 1982."

Summary Offences Act 1981

Reprint as at:
2025-11-27
Assent:
1981-10-23
Commencement:
see section 1(2)

The Parliamentary Counsel Office has made editorial and format changes to this version using the powers under subpart 2 of Part 3 of the Legislation Act 2019.

Note 4 at the end of this version provides a list of the amendments included in it.

This Act is administered by the Ministry of Justice.


An Act to reform and restate the law relating to summary offences, and to replace the Police Offences Act 1927 and its amendments