1.—(1) This Order may be cited as the General Optical Council (Constitution) Order 2009 and—
(a)apart from article 5(h), comes into force on 1st April 2009;
(b)article 5(h) comes into force on the coming into force of section 44(1) of the Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act 2006(1) (registers: power to apply for vetting information).
(2) In this Order—
“the Act” means the Opticians Act 1989;
“chair” means the chair of the Council;
“final outcome”, in relation to any proceedings where there are rights of appeal, means the outcome of the proceedings—
once the period for bringing an appeal has expired without an appeal being brought; or
if an appeal is brought in accordance with those rights, once those rights have been exhausted;
“licensing body” means any body, other than the Council, anywhere in the world that licenses or regulates any profession;
“member”, unless the context otherwise requires, means a registrant member or a lay member and includes the chair; and
“spent conviction” means—
in relation to a conviction by a court in Great Britain, a conviction that is a spent conviction for the purposes of the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974(2); or
in relation to a conviction by a court in Northern Ireland, a conviction that is a spent conviction for the purposes of the Rehabilitation of Offenders (Northern Ireland) Order 1978(3).