New Zealand: Acts affecting Native Lands, 1886, 1888-91 and 1894-95

Prohibited Dealings With Native Land

Prohibited Dealings With Native Land.

5.	Dealings with Native land prohibited until ownership ascertained. It shall not be lawful for any person to negotiate, either on his own behalf or as agent or trustee for any other person, for the purchase, conveyance, transfer, lease, exchange, or occupation of any Native land, or of any land, or any estate, right, title, or interest therein, or for any agency or authority to deal therewith or in relation thereto, unless such land is now owned under Crown grant, memorial of ownership, or certificate of title issued under either a Native Land Court Act or a Land Transfer Act to not more than twenty Natives, or unless such land shall hereafter become and shall have been so owned for fortv days.
6.	Notice to be given when ownership has been ascertained. Forthwith upon any land hereafter becoming owned by not more than twenty Natives as aforesaid, it shall be a duty of the Chief Judge to notify the same in the Gazette, and also the name and description of the land, and the time when the said forty days will expire.
7.	Penalty for entering upon prohibited dealings. Any person who, on his own behalf or as agent or trustee for any other person, shall take or accept any conveyance, lease, transfer, gift, or other assurance from any Native, whether to himself solely or to himself and others, of any Native land or of any land not page 29heretofore owned as aforesaid, or which becoming hereafter so owned, shall not have been owned for forty days as aforesaid, or who shall be a party to any negotiation, agreement, contract, or promise for the making to him, or to him and others, or to any other person, of any such conveyance, lease, transfer, gift, or other assurance, or for the accepting or giving of any such agency or authority, shall forfeit and pay a penalty not exceeding five hundred pounds, to be recovered in a summary way. Every such conveyance, lease, transfer, gift, and other assurance,Prohibited transactions illegal and void. agreement, contract, promise, agency, and authority shall, except as hereinafter provided, be illegal and void: Provided that no person shall be convicted of any offence aforesaidProsecutions only with prescribed sanction. except on the information or complaint of some person duly authorised in that behalf by the Governor, either generally or in respect of some particular case.
8.	Nothing in this or the said Act shall affect or applyRights of the Crown not to be prejudiced. to the Crown, or to any person acting for or on behalf of the Crown under the authority of a Minister of the Crown.
9.	Sections eighteen and nineteen of the said Act are herebyRepeal. repealed.
10.	Section eight of the said Act shall be read as if there wereDebtor secured sufficient land for his maintenance. added thereto the words following: And unless and until a Trust Commissioner shall, upon inquiry in open Court, have ascertained that an area of land or a share in land is owned by the Native debtor sufficient for his maintenance, and shall have given his certificate to that effect describing such land or share in land. Against the land so described no such registration and seizure as aforesaid shall be had or effected until a Commissioner shall have given a like certificate in relation to other land of the said debtor, and shall have cancelled the first-mentioned certificate.