Commentary on Sections Outline of proposals Section 60: Cases where duty to secure arises
177.In certain circumstances an application under section 59 will mean that the police or others will have to secure the material seized pending the hearing of that application. This section sets out the circumstances in which a duty to secure material seized arises. Whilst it can only arise following the seizure of material under section 50 or 51, there is no duty to secure simply where it is alleged that the police or others have possession of irrelevant material. Indeed the whole point of the new powers is that the police can seize a bulk of material in order to separate out the relevant from the irrelevant. The circumstances where the duty to secure arises are where an application under section 59 is made and at least one of the conditions set out in subsections (2) and (3) is satisfied. In particular the duty to secure will arise whenever it is claimed that the material seized includes legally privileged material which should be returned. This means that the person from whom the material is seized can, by making such an application, prevent the police or others looking at any material seized under sections 50 or 51 pending the hearing before the judge. This gives further protection to legally privileged material. Similar protection is given to special procedure material and excluded material where the legislation containing the underlying power of seizure itself protects those categories of material.