SUPPLEMENTARY BENEFITS (NORTHERN IRELAND) ORDER 1977

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SUPPLEMENTARY BENEFITS (NORTHERN IRELAND) ORDER 1977 - SECT 32



32.(1) Any person authorised by the Department in that behalf may conduct any
proceedings under this Order before a magistrates' court although not a
barrister-at-law or solicitor.

(2) Without prejudice to any other method of recovery, any sum due under this
Order to the Department, other than a sum due under an order under Article 23
or 24, shall be recoverable summarily as a civil debt.

(3) Notwithstanding anything in section [34(1)(a)] of the Magistrates' Courts
Act (Northern Ireland) 1964 (time limit for summary proceedings), proceedings
for an offence under this Order may be begun at any time within the period of
three months from the date on which evidence, sufficient in the opinion of the
Department to justify a prosecution for the offence, comes to the Department's
knowledge, or within the period of twelve months from the commission of the
offence, whichever period last expires.

(4) For the purposes of paragraph (3), a certificate purporting to be signed
by the Head of the Department or a secretary or assistant secretary of the
Department as to the date on which such evidence as is mentioned in that
paragraph came to the Department's knowledge shall be conclusive evidence of
that date.

(5) In any proceedings for an offence under this Order the wife or husband of
the accused shall be competent to give evidence, whether for or against the
accused, but shall not be compellable either to give evidence or, in giving
evidence, to disclose any communication made to her or to him by the accused
during the marriage; and accordingly section 4 of the Criminal Evidence Act
(Northern Ireland) 1923 (which makes an accused's spouse a competent witness
in relation to offences under the enactments specified in Schedule 1 to that
Act) shall have effect with the inclusion of this Order among the enactments
mentioned in that Schedule.

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Northern Irish Legislation

SUPPLEMENTARY BENEFITS (NORTHERN IRELAND) ORDER 1977 - SECT 32