Document ID: chunk:federal_register_of_legislation:C2004A03935:body:0:p49
Version: federal_register_of_legislation:C2004A03935
Segment Type: other
Provision Reference: 
Character Range: 118343–120980

in relation to a person, the court must obtain and consider the reports of 2 duly qualified psychiatrists with experience in the diagnosis and treatment of mental illness.

"(6) A court may make a hospital order in respect of a person even if the person is serving a federal sentence at the time when, under the order, the person is to begin to be detained in hospital and, where a hospital order is made in such circumstances:

    (a) the hospital order is sufficient authority for the person to be detained outside the prison during the period of involuntary hospitalisation under the order; and

  (b) the person is to be treated, for the purposes of that sentence, as serving that sentence during the period of involuntary hospitalisation under the order; and

  (c) if the person is still liable to serve a part of that sentence when the hospital order ends or is discharged, the person is to be returned for that purpose to the prison where he or she was serving that sentence before the making of the order.

"(7) Subsection (4) does not enable a court, in the case of a person who is serving a federal sentence at the time when the hospital order begins, to fix a lesser period of detention ending:

  (a) if a non-parole period has been fixed in respect of the sentence— before the end of that non-parole period; and

(b) otherwise—before the end of that sentence.

Lesser periods of imprisonment fixed under hospital orders

"20bt. (1) Where a lesser period of detention is fixed under subsection 20bs (4) in relation to a person detained in hospital under a hospital order, the Attorney-General must, at the end of the lesser period, obtain and consider the reports of 2 duly qualified psychiatrists with experience in the diagnosis and treatment of mental illness so as to determine whether or not to release the person from the detention.

"(2) Unless:

   (a) either of the reports of the psychiatrists recommends that the person not be released because of a continuing need for hospital treatment; or

   (b) the person continues, at the end of the lesser period of detention, to be required to serve a federal sentence of imprisonment that the person was serving at the time when the hospital order began;

the Attorney-General must order the person to be released on such conditions (including conditions relating to release into the care of another person specified in the order) for the balance of the period of the hospital order as the Attorney-General considers appropriate having regard to the reports and to such other matters as he or she considers relevant.

"(3) Sections 20bm and 20bn apply in relation to a