Cook IslandsFilms and Censorship Act 1985, film, video, document and sound-recording classification and minor-supply restriction
Films and Censorship Act 1985, No. 1 (Cook Islands)
archived copy
Read from a public archive copy, not the publisher directly. The publisher does not serve this page to automated readers, so a direct fetch was not an option here; how we access sources. Archived . Publisher's page: https://www.paclii.org/ck/legis/num_act/faca1985207/In force.
An adult content age verification (AV) rule binding private bodies.
- Enforcement body
- Chief Censor of films and documents
- Obligation class
- Age verification, Licensing
- Audit expectation
- on_request
- Who audits it
- Regulator
What it requires
- Hold a renter's or exhibitor's licence issued by the Minister before renting or exhibiting film to the public (ss. 4 and 5).
- Get the censor's approval before exhibiting a film publicly or selling or renting a video tape to the public, and do not rent a video tape otherwise than in accordance with that approval; the censor may approve generally, refuse, require excisions, or restrict exhibition to a specified class of persons (ss. 16-18, 23, 25).
- Do not sell, deliver by way of hire, or possess for sale or hire any indecent document or sound recording, and do not sell, deliver, give, exhibit or offer one to a person under the age of 18 (s. 32).
- Circulate a document or sound recording only as the censor's classification allows: indecent, not indecent, or indecent unless circulation is restricted to a specified age or class of persons (ss. 28-31).
These lines are LexLint's reading of the law's text.
If you get it wrong
Criminal exposureYes
Criminal exposure note
Section 32(2) makes it an offence, punishable on conviction by a fine not exceeding $500, to sell, deliver by way of hire, or possess for sale or hire an indecent document or sound recording, or to sell, deliver, give, exhibit, or offer to a person under the age of 18 years a document or sound recording which is indecent. Sections 4, 5, 17, 25, and 27 each carry the same $500 fine cap for their respective licensing and approval offences, and section 34 caps at $500 any other contravention of the Act for which no penalty is specifically provided. No provision states a term of imprisonment.
Penalty structure
Section 32(2) caps the fine for the indecent-document and under-18-supply offences at $500. Every other offence in the Act (renting or exhibiting film without a licence under sections 4 and 5, exhibiting an unapproved film under section 17, renting an unapproved video tape under section 25, obstructing a constable under section 27, and any other contravention under section 34) carries the same $500 fixed cap. The Act states these amounts in Cook Islands dollars, at par with the New Zealand dollar.
- Rule
- Fixed only
- As of
- Currency
- NZD
- Fixed cap
- 500
What it makes you log
Who may demand the log
Regulator
Logging duty
Every renter's or exhibitor's licensee must keep a register of the films it holds for rent or exhibition, recording each film's title, number of copies, the censor's classification or exemption and the date of the censor's decision. The register records the classification that governs who may be shown a film; the Act requires no record of any age check of a customer or viewer, and no record of who was supplied. The censor's own Register of Films (s. 26) is a public register kept by the authority, not by the licensee. The trigger value is the nearest the vocabulary offers, since the duty falls on every licensee and not on an age check.
- Kind
- Explicit
- As of
- Provision
- Films and Censorship Act 1985, s. 24(1) and (2)
- Trigger
- all_systems
What this law does
Sections 4 and 5 require a person renting or exhibiting film to the public to hold a renter's or exhibitor's licence issued by the Minister. Sections 16 to 18 require every film to be approved by a censor before public exhibition, and the censor may approve a film generally, refuse approval, require excisions, or approve it subject to exhibition being restricted to a specified class of persons. Section 23 extends the same approval requirement to video tapes sold or rented to the public.
Sections 28 to 31 give the censor the function of classifying a document or sound recording as indecent, as not indecent, or as indecent unless its circulation is restricted to a specified age or class of persons, considering among other things the age groups to or among whom it is likely to be distributed.
Section 32 makes it an offence to sell, deliver by way of hire, or possess for sale or hire any indecent document or sound recording, and separately an offence to sell, deliver, give, exhibit, or offer to a person under the age of 18 years any document or sound recording which is indecent. Section 25 makes it an offence for a renter's licence holder to rent a video tape otherwise than in accordance with the section 23 approval requirement.
The Act is administered by the Crown Law Office through an appointed Chief Censor. No source stating the day the Act came into operation has been located. Article 45 of the Constitution of the Cook Islands brings an Act into operation on the day its Bill is assented to unless the Act specifies another date.
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