Search and seizure
legal procedure by which the police commence search of an entity's property and seize/confiscate any relevant evidence
Search and seizure is a procedure used in many civil law and common law legal systems by which police or other authorities and their agents, who, suspecting that a crime has been committed, commence a search of a person's property and seize or confiscate any relevant evidence (or the person) found in connection to the crime.
Some countries have certain provisions in their constitutions that provide the public with the right to be free from "unreasonable searches and seizures". This right is generally based on the premise that everyone is entitled to a reasonable right to privacy.
Though specific interpretation may vary, this right can often require law enforcement to obtain a search warrant or consent of the owner before engaging in any form of search and seizure. In cases where evidence is seized in a search, that evidence might be rejected by court procedures, such as with a motion to suppress the evidence under the exclusionary rule.
Worldwide
Italy
In Italy protection from search and seizure is enshrined in Article 14 of the Constitution, which states:
The home is inviolable. Home inspections, searches, or seizures shall not be admissible save in the cases and manners complying with measures to safeguard personal liberty. Controls and inspections for reason of public health and safety, or for economic and fiscal purposes, shall be regulated by appropriate laws.
New Zealand
There is little to no protection from unreasonable search and seizure in New Zealand.
Section 21 of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990 (NZBoRA 1990) incorporates the right to be free from unreasonable search and seizure into New Zealand law, stating that: "Everyone has the right to be secure against unreasonable search or seizure, whether of the person, property, or correspondence or otherwise." However, Section 4 of the Act explicitly denies the Bill of Rights supremacy over other legislation.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Search and seizure” as legal procedure by which the police commence search of an entity's property and seize/confiscate any relevant evidence. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as legal procedure by which the police commence search of an entity's property and seize/confiscate any relevant evidence. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 6, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q647884. The Library of Congress control number is sh85119358. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1990.
A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “Search and seizure” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.