Commentary on Sections Procedural matters Section 16: Statement of information
38.Where the prosecutor or the Director of the Agency requires the court to hold a confiscation hearing, the prosecutor (or the Director, as the case may be) is required to give the court a statement detailing the defendant’s benefit from criminal conduct. The nature of the information in the statement will depend on whether the prosecutor or the Director believes the defendant has a criminal lifestyle. If the prosecutor or Director does believe that the defendant has a criminal lifestyle, under sub-section (4) the statement must include information relevant to the making of the assumptions and for the purpose of enabling the court to decide if it should not make an assumption. The statement will therefore include information about matters known to the prosecutor or Director which could cause the court to decide that making an assumption would give rise to a serious risk of injustice.
39.Subsection (2) provides that, where the court holds a confiscation hearing of its own volition, it may require the prosecutor (but not the Director) to present a statement. The provision is based on the assumption that the court will never hold a confiscation hearing of its own volition in a case in which the Director is involved.