UK Offence Report

Disclosure of date of birth lists: Northern Ireland

regulation 124A(1) of The Representation of the People and Recall Petition (Northern Ireland) (Amendment) Regulations 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 regulation 13B (supply of date of birth lists to police forces and restrictions on use) or regulation 45A (court orders for production of date of birth lists), 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 This is the text as originally made; later amendments are not shown here.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 regulation 124A(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 Representation of the People and Recall Petition (Northern Ireland) (Amendment) Regulations 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
18 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 Regulations) — the explanatory note published with the instrument, © Crown copyright.

These Regulations make various changes to the rules governing Parliamentary elections, recall petitions and Assembly elections in Northern Ireland. Many of the changes are required as a result of changes to electoral law made by the Elections Act 2022 (the “2022 Act”). Part 2 makes amendments to the Representation of the People (Northern Ireland) Regulations 2008 (S.I. 2008/1741) (the “2008 Regulations”). Regulation 3 inserts into the 2008 Regulations two new regulations about applications for electoral identity cards in Northern Ireland: new regulation 13A requires the Chief Electoral Officer in Northern Ireland (the “CEO”) to notify the applicant of the result of their application for a voter identity card; and new regulation 13B provides a right of appeal against a refusal of an electoral identity card. Regulation 4 amends regulation 46B of the 2008 Regulations, which gives the CEO the power to retain a person’s entry on the electoral register even if the person’s form in response to the canvass was not returned or not completely filled in. In relation to the canvass conducted in 2021 a person’s entry may now be retained for three years (as opposed to the usual two). Regulation 6 amends regulation 56 of the 2008 Regulations, which sets out the information required on an application for the appointment of a proxy. The first amendment requires a proxy application to include the proxy’s date of birth. The second removes the requirement for the application 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). Regulations 7 and 8 amend regulations 55A and 62 of the 2008 Regulations 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” held by the CEO, the CEO 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. Regulation 9 inserts a new Part 6A, which is about the disclosure of date of birth lists to the police (new regulation 114B) and in response to a court order (new regulation 114C). These two new regulations include restrictions on further disclosure, breach of which is a criminal offence under section 66B of the Representation of the People Act 1983. Regulation 10 and Schedules 2, 3 and 4 make changes to the forms used in Parliamentary 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. Regulation 11 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. Part 3 makes amendments to the Recall of MPs Act 2015 (Recall Petition) Regulations 2016 (S.I. 2016/295) (the “Recall Regulations”) as they apply in Northern Ireland. Regulation 13 extends certain amendments previously made to the Recall Regulations to Northern Ireland, primarily so that they can be operated on by these Regulations. Regulation 14 inserts into the Recall Regulations five new regulations relating to date of birth lists. New regulation 13A imposes an obligation on the CEO to prepare date of birth lists for electors and proxies (mirroring new paragraph 19B inserted into the rules for Parliamentary elections set out in Schedule 1 to the Representation of the People Act 1983 (the “Parliamentary Elections Rules”) by paragraph 11 of Schedule 1 to the 2022 Act). New regulations 13B and 45A contain provision about the disclosure of date of birth lists to the police and in response to a court order (mirroring the new regulations 114B and 114C inserted into the 2008 Regulations by Part 2), and new regulation 124A makes it a criminal offence for a person to breach the restrictions in those regulations. New regulation 46A makes provision for the destruction of date of birth lists (mirroring equivalent provision inserted into the Parliamentary Elections Rules by the 2022 Act). Regulations 15 to 22 make various other changes to the Recall Regulations relating to voter identification. These follow changes made to the Parliamentary Elections Rules by the 2022 Act and changes already made to the Recall Regulations in England and Wales and Scotland by the Voter Identification Regulations 2022 (S.I. 2022/1382). Part 4 amends the Northern Ireland Assembly (Elections) Order 2001 (S.I. 2001/2599) to apply some of the changes made by Part 1 to Assembly Elections. 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

What Parliament said

Mentions of this instrument in Hansard. Parliamentary material is reused under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0.

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