Sections 18 to 20: Inspection, Prohibition and Penalty

In one line

Sections 18, 19 and 20 give the Committee the power to go in and look, the power to shut a laboratory down, and the penalty for going on anyway.

In exam wording: section 18 of the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act 1960 empowers the Committee, for the purpose of ensuring that its rules are being complied with, to authorise in writing any of its officers or any other person to inspect any institution or place where experiments are being carried on and report, that person having power to enter at any reasonable time and to require the production of any record kept with respect to experiments on animals; section 19 empowers the Committee, if satisfied on such a report or otherwise that its rules are not being complied with, after giving an opportunity of being heard, by order to prohibit the person or institution from carrying on experiments either for a specified period or indefinitely, or to allow them subject to special conditions; and section 20 makes it an offence to contravene an order made under section 19 or to fail to produce a record required under section 18.

Section 18: entry and inspection

Who may inspect. Any officer of the Committee, or any other person, authorised in writing by the Committee.

For what purpose. Ensuring that the rules made by the Committee are being complied with.

Two powers. To enter at any time considered reasonable by him and inspect any institution or place in which experiments on animals are being carried on; and to require any person to produce any record kept with respect to experiments on animals.

What it does not contain. No power of seizure, no power to stop an experiment on the spot, and no power of arrest. The inspector reports, and the Committee acts.

Section 19: prohibition

The trigger. The Committee is satisfied, on the report of an inspection under section 18 or otherwise, that the rules made under section 17 are not being complied with by a person or institution carrying on experiments.

The safeguard. An opportunity to the person or institution of being heard in the matter.

The three orders available. Prohibit the carrying on of any such experiments for a specified period; prohibit them indefinitely; or allow them subject to such special conditions as the Committee thinks fit.

Why the third option matters. A prohibition stops a laboratory and with it the treatment of animals already in its care. The conditional order lets the Committee correct rather than close, and it is the order most often made.

Section 20: the penalty

Section 20 makes it an offence to contravene an order made by the Committee under section 19, or to fail without reasonable cause to produce a record required to be produced under section 18. The penalty is a fine as the section provides.