Commonwealth Consolidated Acts Commonwealth Consolidated Acts(1) Subject to this section, a person charged with an offence against a law of Australia or of a State or Territory is not liable to be tried for that offence by a court if he or she was, at the time when the offence is alleged to have been committed, a member of a visiting force or of a civilian component of a visiting force and:
(a) the alleged offence, if committed by him or her , arose out of and in the course of his or her duty as a member of that force or component, as the case may be, or is an offence solely against the security of the sending country;
(b) the alleged offence is an offence against the person, and the person or, if the act or omission constituting the offence has relation to more than one person, each of the persons in relation to whom the offence is alleged to have been committed had at the time of the alleged commission of the offence a relevant association either with that force or with another visiting force of the same country; or
(c) the alleged offence is an offence against property, and the whole of the property in relation to which it is alleged to have been committed (or, in a case where different parts of that property were differently owned, each part of the property) was, at the time of the alleged commission of the offence, the property either of the sending country or of an authority of that country or of a person or persons having such an association as is specified in the last preceding paragraph.
(2) The last preceding subsection does not apply if:
(a) at the time when the offence is alleged to have been committed, the alleged offender was a person not subject to the jurisdiction of the service tribunals of the sending country in accordance with the last preceding section; or
(b) the alleged offender was at that time a member of a civilian component of a visiting force and the case cannot be dealt with under the service law of the sending country.
(3) Subsection ( 1):
(a) does not prevent a person from being tried by a court in a case where the Attorney - General certifies in writing, either before or in the course of the trial, that the designated authority of the sending country has notified him or her that it is not proposed to deal with the case under the law of that country;
(b) does not affect anything done or omitted in the course of a trial unless in the course of the trial objection has already been made that, by reason of that subsection, the court is not competent to deal with the case; and
(c) shall not, after the conclusion of a trial, be treated as having affected the validity of the trial, if no such objection was made in the proceedings at any stage before the conclusion of the trial.
(4) Where the charge is a charge (by whatever words expressed) of attempting or conspiring to commit an offence, or of aiding, abetting, inciting, procuring or being accessory to the commission of an offence:
(a) paragraphs ( b) and (c) of subsection ( 1) have effect as if references in those paragraphs to the alleged offence were references to the offence that the person charged is alleged to have attempted or conspired to commit or, as the case may be, the offence the commission of which it is alleged that he or she aided, abetted, incited or procured or to the commission of which he or she was accessory; and
(b) references in those paragraphs to persons in relation to whom, or property in relation to which, the offence is alleged to have been committed shall be construed accordingly.
(5) This section does not derogate from any provision of any law that restricts the prosecution of any proceedings or requires the consent of an authority of Australia or of a State or Territory to the prosecution of any proceedings.
(6) For the purposes of this section, the expressions offence against the person and offence against property shall be construed in accordance with the provisions of the Schedule.