Search powers: When the police can search you, your home or your things
Overview
There are important restrictions on when the police can search your home, your car, your bags and other things, and you personally. They can only do it if they have your permission (“consent”) or if they have a specific legal power, either because they’ve got a warrant (written authority) from a judge or it’s a situation where an Act of Parliament gives them the power to do it without a warrant.
Even if you agree to the search, the search may still be illegal if the police went outside their powers. New Zealand’s Bill of Rights also protects people from unreasonable search and seizure. Whether a search is unreasonable will depend on all the circumstances surrounding the search and the way it was carried out.
What can I do if the police conduct an illegal or unreasonable search?
New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990, s 21
If you think a police search of you, your home or your things was illegal or unreasonable, you can:
- complain to the Independent Police Conduct Authority (see: “Complaining about the police”), or
- bring a civil court case for money (“damages”) under the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act – for example, to get the police to pay for the cost of any damage they caused to your things.
If the police bring charges against you in court, they might not be able to use anything they found during the search as evidence against you. The judge will take into account:
- what the police did and how serious it was,
- how serious the charges against you are, and
- how important the evidence is to the police’s case against you.
