STATUTORY RULES.

1941. No. 318.

REGULATION UNDER THE NATIONAL SECURITY ACT 1939–1940.*

I, THE GOVERNOR-GENERAL in and over the Commonwealth of Australia, acting with the advice of the Federal Executive Council, hereby make the following Regulation under the National Security Act 1939–1940.

Dated this nineteenth day of December, 1941.

(SGD.) GOWRIE.

Governor-General.

By His Excellency’s Command,

for and on behalf of the Minister of State for Defence Co-ordination.

Amendment of National Security (Supplementary) Regulations.†

The National ‘Security (Supplementary) Regulations are amended by adding at the end thereof the following regulation:—

Certificates of death of persons engaged on war service.

“25.—(1.) Where a competent authority is satisfied that, from the information available in the Department of the Navy, the Department of the Army, or the Department of Air, as the case may be, a person while engaged on war service—

(a) died on a particular date; or

(b) became missing on a particular date and is for official purposes presumed to be dead,

he may issue a certificate (in this regulation referred to as ‘a certificate of death on war service’) that that person, while engaged on war service—

(c) died on that date; or

(d) became missing on that date and is for official purposes presumed to be dead.

“(2.) A certificate of death on war service in respect of any person shall in all courts and before all persons acting judicially be prima facie evidence of the death of the person named in the certificate on the date specified in the certificate as the date on which he died or became missing, as the case may be.

* Notified in the Commonwealth Gazette on      , 1941.

† Statutory Rules 1940, No. 126, as amended by Statutory Rules 1940, Nos. 151, 169, 213, 228, 233, 234, 245 and 257; and 1941, Nos. 75, 88, 100, 140, 197, 200, 222, 249, 296, 297, 303 and 314.

6665.—22/15.12.1941.—Price 3d.

“(3.) Every court and every person acting judicially shall take judicial notice of the signature of every competent authority and of the fact that he is a competent authority.

“(4.) Any person who, acting in good faith on the presumption of the death of any person in respect of whom a certificate of death on war service has been issued, and while that certificate is uncancelled, pays any money or transfers any property to a person who is entitled to receive the money or property on the assumption that the person named in the certificate died on the date specified in the certificate as the date on which the person named in the certificate died or became missing shall obtain a good discharge in respect of that money or property, and, in the event of the person named in the certificate being in fact alive subsequently to the date so specified, shall not be subject to any liability, civil or criminal, in connexion with that money or property, to which he would not have been subject had the person named in the certificate died on the date so specified.

“(5.) Where a certificate of death on war service has been wrongly issued, or, subsequently to the issue of the certificate, information which indicates that the Certificate should not have been issued becomes available, the person who has possession of the certificate shall, upon demand by a competent authority, deliver up the certificate to that competent authority, who may thereupon cancel the certificate.

“(6.) In this regulation—

‘competent authority’ means a person authorized by the Minister, by notice in the Gazette, to issue certificates of death on war service for the purposes of this regulation;

‘engaged on war service’ means serving during the present war—

(a) as a member of any naval, military or air forces of the Commonwealth or of any other part of His Majesty’s dominions;

(b) with any nursing service, voluntary aid detachment, red cross society, ambulance association or any similar body or organization attached to or accompanying any of those forces; or

(c) as a representative, attached to or accompanying any such force, of any organization which is providing philanthropic, welfare or medical services for members of that force,

and includes undergoing detention as a prisoner of war or internment in a country under the sovereignty or in the occupation of the enemy or internment in a neutral country immediately after so serving;

‘the Minister’ means any one of the following, namely, the Minister of State for Defence Co-ordination, the Minister of State for the Navy, the Minister of State for the Army and the Minister of State for Air.”.

By Authority: L. F. Johnston, Commonwealth Government Printer, Canberra.