UK Offence Report

Supply of date of birth lists to police and pursuant to a court order

article 4(1) of The Local Elections (Northern Ireland) Order 2023

This offence was read from the text as made, and no revised version was available, so a later revocation could not be ruled out. Check the current text at legislation.gov.uk.

What the provision says

1 A person is guilty of an offence—

a if they fail to comply with any of the restrictions imposed under paragraph

2 or 3, or

b if they are an appropriate supervisor of

a person (P) who fails to comply with any of those restrictions and they failed to take appropriate steps.

Text as made, from legislation.gov.uk. © Crown copyright, reused under the Open Government Licence v3.0. This is the text as originally made; later amendments are not shown here.

Who it binds, and what has to be proved

Binds
a person
Conduct
failing to do something the instrument requires
Fault element
Strict liability
Burden of proof
No statutory defence — prosecution proves everything

The prosecution must prove that the conduct happened. This is a strict liability offence as drafted: the provision uses no word of intention, knowledge, recklessness or negligence, so there is no need to show that a person meant to do it, knew about it, or was careless.

Intention, knowledge and carelessness are irrelevant to guilt. They may still matter a great deal to sentence.

The provision states no defence, so the prosecution bears the burden on every element of the offence.

Classifier’s reasoning: no word of intention, knowledge, recklessness or negligence in the offence or its provision.

What would breach article 4(1)?

These are illustrations, not law. They are generated from the provision’s own words to show the shape of the offence. Whether any particular conduct is caught depends on the full text, on any amendment since, and on the facts.

  1. Not doing what the provision requires under the Local Elections (Northern Ireland) Order 2023, by the time it requires it to be done.
  2. Doing it, but not in the manner or to the standard the instrument specifies.

Penalty

Mode of trial
Summary only — tried in a magistrates’ court
Maximum fine
£5,000
Standard scale
Level 5
Maximum prison (summary)
Not determined

in Northern Ireland a reference to a level is construed as referring to the standard scale as it currently stands (Fines and Penalties (NI) Order 1984 art.5(3)), not as it stood when the instrument was made.

Sentencing

Offences of this kind are usually sentenced under the guidelines below. This is a mapping by subject, not a finding about this provision, and the links go to a search of the Sentencing Council’s own site.

Prosecution figures

No published per-offence figure was found for this provision, and it could not be matched to a Ministry of Justice offence code. Offences created by statutory instrument very largely do not have one. Absence of a figure is not evidence that the offence is unused.

Status and lifecycle

Current status
Status not determined
Made
11 October 2023
In force from
31 October 2023
Extent
N.I.

How this was established: read from the text as made; no revised version available, so later revocation could not be ruled out.

What the instrument is for

(This note is not part of the Order) — the explanatory note published with the instrument, © Crown copyright.

This Order makes various changes to the rules governing local elections in Northern Ireland. Similar changes are made to the rules governing Parliamentary elections in a separate instrument (the Representation of the People and Recall Petition (Northern Ireland) (Amendment) Regulations 2023). Many of the changes in this Order are required as a result of changes to electoral law made by the Elections Act 2022 (the “2022 Act”). Article 2 makes an amendment to paragraph 9(1) of Schedule 2 to the Local Elections (Northern Ireland) Order 1985 (S.I. 1985/454) (the “1985 Order”), to remove the requirement for an application for a proxy to provide details of the family relationship between the proxy and the person appointing them. This is required as a result of changes to the rules governing the number of persons for whom a proxy can act (see Schedule 4 to the 2022 Act). Article 3 amends paragraph 12 of Schedule 2 to the 1985 Order to provide that where a person (including a proxy) applies for a postal vote and requests that their ballot papers are sent to an address which is different from the “normal address” used by the Chief Electoral Officer in Northern Ireland, the Chief Electoral Officer must send to that normal address a confirmation that the ballot papers will be sent to the requested address, or the notification that the application has been refused. Article 4 inserts a new Schedule 2A into the Local Elections (Northern Ireland) Order 2010 (S.I. 2010/2977), which is about the disclosure of date of birth lists to the police (paragraph 2) and in response to a court order (paragraph 3). These two new paragraphs include restrictions on further disclosure, breach of which is a criminal offence, as set out in paragraph 4. Article 5 and Schedules 1, 2 and 3 make changes to the forms used in local elections in Northern Ireland to reflect the changes made by the 2022 Act to the rules on the number of persons for whom a proxy may act and to the acceptable forms of voter identification. Article 6 is a transitional provision which requires a proxy paper form for a proxy appointment made before 5th March 2024 to reflect the fact that the new rules on proxy appointments do not yet apply. A full impact assessment has not been produced for this instrument as no, or no significant, impact on the private or voluntary sector or community bodies is foreseen.

Read the full note and every offence in this instrument

Other offences in the same instrument

How this was identified as an offence

Everything above rests on the judgement that this provision creates a criminal offence, rather than mentioning one. That judgement is made by rule, from the words of the provision, and this is the rule that made it — with a confidence of 0.92.

Basis
the provision says a person is “guilty of an offence”
Confidence
0.92 of 1.00

A provision that states a penalty for an offence created elsewhere can read very like one that creates an offence, and the rules can mistake the one for the other. If the text quoted above sets a penalty for something made an offence by another provision, treat the classification on this page with that in mind, and read the instrument.

Check the source