In the past couple of years the Ministry of Justice, Private Security Personnel Licensing Authority (PSPLA), has issued two relevant determinations that have changed the landscape for many sectors in our profession.
First, the PSPLA determined that persons making enquiries, interviewing witnesses and/or performing investigative work in the employment relations, dispute type areas covered by the Employment Court, were deemed to be acting in the capacity that required them to hold a Private Investigators licence or Certificate of Authority (COA) to be employed by a licence holder. The following link will take you to the decison. https://www.hasanz.org.nz/assets/Uploads/Documents/2022-NZPSPLA-030.pdf
Next, the PSPLA turned its attention to "Forensic Accountants". Indeed, there can be some confusion as to what enables an accountant to be certified "forensic" but the fact remains that if an accountant is carrying out investigative work, most often in dishonesty cases, the work might meet the test of the definition of Private Investigator under the relevant New Zealand legislation. This work was captured by the PSPLA. The following link will take you to the PSPLA decision. https://www.justice.govt.nz/assets/Documents/Decisions/2022-NZPSPLA-031.pdf
Note: in both decisions, being a member of their own professional body could enable the individual to be covered and not require a PI licence.
Recently, we met with a private investigator who was and who had been performing criminal defence work for many years, for some high profile barristers, yet it turned out the PI only held a COA, although operating under a company. In such a case, the work and evidence could well be questioned and given the evidence was obtained by an unlicensed investigator, could be in jeopardy. We assisted this agent to resolve the matter, thought the PSPLA. This is more common than you might think, this link will take you to many cases ruled y the PSPLA https://www.justice.govt.nz/tribunals/licences-certificates/pspla/pspla-decisions/?Filter_Jurisdiction=745&Keywords=no+licence
The message is clear, it is beholding on the client as well as the investigator to ensure they are meeting the requirements of the Private Security Personnel and Private Investigators Act 2010.
To assist potential applicants in determining what licence they require, the writer, current Chair of the New Zealand Institute of Private Investigators, included a page on the NZIPI website. This link will take you to that page. https://nzipi.org.nz/pspla-licence/
