Dear Editor, the letter writer raises two issues in an attempt to defame my character and the great effort at the Ministry of Justice to improve government services (‘A guessing game I can do without’, Cook Islands News, February 9. 2022).

Regarding re-registration, companies were given more than fair warning of what the legislation requires. The “new” Companies Act went through public consultation and was passed in 2017, more than a year before I started at the Ministry of Justice.  Owners of companies are obligated to find out what their legal duties are under the law and cannot blame others for their own inaction and failure to meet deadlines. Companies were given a full year to re-register, from 10th December 2019 to 9th December 2020. 

The Ministry of Justice conducted several public meetings, including with the legal community and with the Chamber of Commerce around the need to re-register. The Ministry also published notices in the newspaper and registry staff were engaged with members of the business community that sought assistance and training with the online system. The Ministry further put out announcements on Radio, advertised on television, and posted on our website and social media. Again, the Ministry was not legally obligated to go to this extent, if at all.

Any company that was actively keeping their company in good standing would have had to file their annual returns around June 2020, which would have alerted them to the need to re-register their companies onto the online registry before they can complete their annual return. It stands to reason that those companies who failed to re-register by the December 2020 deadline, also failed to file their June 2020 annual returns (and would have shortly thereafter been struck off the registry under the old Company Act).

Because we recognised that Covid-19 was an issue for people during 2020, and it became clear that there was no other appropriate legal recourse, we pursued an extension of that deadline to March 31^st 2022. This was to assist the business community.

It is worth noting that our members of Parliament supported this extension and the several other changes to the Company Act that we identified as being needed.  Following the passage of the amendment granting the extension, we have worked with our vendor Paradigm Apps and with the Asia Development Bank to finalise the changes needed in the system to allow re-registration to take place. This is likely to go live next week and the Ministry already has plans to do some public awareness around this.

For anyone living abroad, it is essential that they either work through a local lawyer/representative or email us directly to assist them with the process, should they need it.

Regarding the Land Court hearings that the letter writer referred to, there are a lot more legal technicalities there than I think he/she appreciates. The Ministry of Justice was technically not compliant with Rule 332 of the Code of Civil Procedure for over ten years. We have now cleaned that up, again with the support of our members of Parliament.

I should also add that the Ministry of Justice has been working on a new website that will include a mailing list feature so that any subscriber can receive news updates, including land court panui lists. We expect that to go live in a couple weeks.

Regards,

Tamatoa Jonassen

Secretary of Ministry of Justice