COOK ISLANDS TAX CASES

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29353, 4 November 1960, Page 3

COOK ISLANDS TAX CASES

Writ Sought To Order Hearing

(New Zealand Press Association) AUCKLAND, November 3.

After hearing legal submissions in the Supreme Court at Auckland today Mr Justice Boys reserved his decision on an application by the Commissioner of Inland Revenue for a writ of mandamus commanding Frederic McCarthy, Stipendiary Magistrate, of Auckland, to determine, upon their merits, three cases involving defendants resident in the Cook Islands, alleging arrears of income tax payments. The defendants are Dick Charles Brown, a trader, William Hugh Watson, a trader, and Napa Tauei Napa, all of Rarotonga. In 1958 it was held by Judge Kay, of the High Court of Rarotonga, that the hearing of the cases did not come within the power of that Court but in the power of the Magistrate’s Court of New Zealand. The cases were then stated in the Magistrate’s Court in Auckland before Mr McCarthy. In a written judgment given in Auckland in February of this year, the Magistrate said he had no jurisdiction to hear the cases, and ruled that the power lay with the Rarotonga High Court. The Magistrate said the sums involved were very considerable and dated back as fer as 1944. Mr P. G. Hillyer, for the defendant, opposed the application put forward by Mr D. R. Wood, for the Commissioner, on the grounds that the Magistrate was correct in his decision and that neither the High Court of Rarotonga nor the Magistrate, in law, had power to hear the actions.