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Court Procedures Rules
4053Criminal proceedings—inspection of registry files
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4053 Criminal proceedings—inspection of registry files
(1) Anyone may search the registry for, inspect, or take a copy of, any
document filed in the registry in a criminal proceeding.
Note A fee may be determined under the Court Procedures Act 2004 for this
provision.
(2) However, the registrar must not allow a person who is not a party to
a proceeding to search the registry for, inspect, or take a copy of, any
of the following documents about the proceeding unless the person
appears to the registrar to have a sufficient interest in the document
or the court gives leave:
(a) an order, transcript of the proceeding, or any other document,
that the court has ordered to be kept confidential;
(b) an affidavit that has not been read in court;
(c) a part of an affidavit ruled to be inadmissible in evidence;
(d) an admission that has not been admitted into evidence;
(e) a subpoena;
Note Rule 6609 (Inspection of, and dealing with, subpoenaed documents
and things produced otherwise than on attendance) deals with the
inspection of documents produced in response to a subpoena.
(f) a deposition taken before an examiner;
(g) a document filed in support of an application made in the
absence of a party;
(h) a written submission that has not been read in court;
Rule 4053
(i) an unsworn statement of evidence;
(j) an indictment on which the accused has not yet been arraigned;
(k) a case statement filed by the prosecution until read in court;
(l) a questionnaire completed by the parties;
(m) a document that the registrar decides should be confidential to
the parties to the proceeding in the interests of justice.
(3) Also, a party to a proceeding may search the registry for, inspect, or
take a copy of, a subpoena issued at the request of another party only
(4) However, subrule (3) does not apply to a subpoena that has been
served on the party.
(5) Further, a party to a proceeding may search the registry for, inspect,
or take a copy of, a document filed to support any of the following
applications only with the court’s leave:
(a) an application for a document, evidence or thing to be kept
confidential;
(b) an application for a document or thing to be granted privilege
from production.
(6) Before considering an application for leave under subrule (2), the
court may require the applicant for leave to do either or both of the
(a) give notice of the application for leave to a party to the relevant
proceeding or another interested person;
(b) obtain the agreement of a party to the relevant proceeding or
another interested person to the applicant searching the registry
for, inspecting, or taking a copy of, a document to which the
Criminal proceedings—other provisions Division 4.1.4
Rule 4054
document—to remove any doubt, document includes a document
kept electronically or in any other way.
Note The Legislation Act, dict, pt 1, defines document to mean any record of
symbols or anything else having a meaning for persons qualified to