Queensland Consolidated Acts Queensland Consolidated Acts(1) Where a corporation is charged with an indictable offence, it may appear before the justices by a representative at the time and place mentioned in the summons issued against it.
(2) A representative may on behalf of a corporation do either or both of the following—
(a) make a statement before the justices in answer to the charge;
(b) enter a plea to the charge;
and any statement so made or plea so entered shall for all purposes be taken to be a statement made or plea entered by the corporation.
(3) Where a representative appears, any requirement of this Act that anything shall be done in the presence of the defendant, or shall be read or said to the defendant, shall be construed as a requirement that that thing shall be done in the presence of the representative or read or said to the representative.
(4) Where a representative does not appear—
(a) any requirement referred to in subsection (3) shall not apply; and
(b) the justices may nevertheless, if upon a consideration of all the evidence adduced upon an examination of witnesses in relation to the offence they are of the opinion that the evidence is sufficient to put the corporation upon its trial for an indictable offence, order the corporation to be committed to be tried for the offence before a court of competent jurisdiction.
(5) Justices may commit a corporation for trial or for sentence notwithstanding their inability to exercise their powers of committal to prison or granting bail following such committal.
(6) Where a representative does not appear and justices order the corporation to be committed for trial, the clerk of the court at which the corporation has been so committed shall forthwith give to the corporation a notice in writing of such committal containing particulars in relation thereto.
(6A) The notice may be given to the corporation by leaving it at or sending it by post to the registered office of the corporation or to any place at which it trades or carries on business.
(7) In this section—
representative means a person appointed by the corporation to represent it for the purposes of this section, but a person so appointed is not, by virtue only of being so appointed, qualified to act on behalf of the corporation before justices for any other purpose.
(8) A representative need not be appointed under the seal of the corporation, and a statement in writing purporting to be signed by a managing director of the corporation or by any other person (by whatever name called) having, or being 1 of the persons having, the management of the affairs of the corporation to the effect that the person named in the statement has been appointed as the representative of the corporation for the purposes of this section shall be admissible without further proof as prima facie evidence that that person has been so appointed.