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Gov. Code, § 8545.5 · Article 1. General Provisions

Gov. Code, § 8545.5

Verbatim from the official edition

Text — As published in the Legislative Counsel's database, tables dated October 18, 2026 (pubinfo_2025.zip)

(a) The superior court in the county in which any interview is held under the direction of the California State Auditor or his or her designee has jurisdiction to compel the attendance of witnesses, the making of oral or written sworn statements, and the production of papers, books, accounts, and documents, as required by any subpoena issued by the California State Auditor or his or her designee.

(b) If any witness refuses to attend or testify or produce any papers required by the subpoena, the California State Auditor or his or her designee may petition the superior court in the county in which the hearing is pending for an order compelling the person to attend and answer questions under penalty of perjury or produce the papers required by the subpoena before the person named in the subpoena. The petition shall set forth all of the following:

(1) That due notice of the time and place of attendance of the person or the production of the papers has been given.

(2) That the person has been subpoenaed in the manner prescribed in Section 8545.4.

(3) That the person has failed and refused to attend or produce the papers required by subpoena before the California State Auditor or his or her designee as named in the subpoena, or has refused to answer questions propounded to him or her in the course of the interview under penalty of perjury.

(c) Upon the filing of the petition, the court shall enter an order directing the person to appear before the court at a specified time and place and then and there show cause why he or she has not attended, answered questions under penalty of perjury, or produced the papers as required. A copy of the order shall be served upon him or her. If it appears to the court that the subpoena was regularly issued by the California State Auditor or his or her designee, the court shall enter an order that the person appear before the person named in the subpoena at the time and place fixed in the order and answer questions under penalty of perjury or produce the required papers. Upon failure to obey the order, the person shall be dealt with as for contempt of court.

Notes and commentary — not statutory text

History

Amended by Stats. 2012, Ch. 281, Sec. 24. (SB 1395) Effective January 1, 2013.

Source of truth

Edition
As published in the Legislative Counsel's database, tables dated October 18, 2026 (pubinfo_2025.zip)
Official file
https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?lawCode=GOV&sectionNum=8545.5.
Text hash
sha256 f3b57dfbc76ab84e9174ab720c583c15b3170dcf3f3f8596566837b29d6d874d
Composed by
compose_ca.py 2026-10-22: the Legislative Counsel's CAML content files read by a tokenizer (caml_readers.reader_a); an independent xml.etree reading (caml_readers.reader_b) agrees on every section

This section cites

Provisions in this library that the text above cites, as it prints each citation. A range cited as “ss. 61.13-61.16” links its first and last provisions.

Procedural information only. Not legal advice and not a substitute for the advice of an attorney. Confirm the current text with the official publisher before relying on it.