February 2022 Newsletter

Message from Registrar

Kia ora koutou

Welcome to the first edition of the IAA newsletter for 2022.

I hope many of you managed to spend some relaxing time over the summer with whānau and friends, refreshing yourself for what will no doubt be another busy year ahead.

In our December 2021 newsletter, we discussed the issue of purported immigration advice being provided by unlicensed people on social media. New resources addressing this issue have now been published online. You can read more about this below.

Lastly, please note the date and topic of our first 2022 webinar will be announced in the next newsletter.

Kia kaha and keep our standards high.

New adviser resources

We now have a PDF resource that can be downloaded and shared when you see unlicensed advice being given on social media platforms. You can also share a link to the web page with the same information.

Both the web page and PDF include links to help individuals access information about who can give New Zealand immigration advice.

The webpage and PDF resource can be found under Adviser resources on our website:

Adviser resources

With the move to reopen borders to the rest of the world from March 2022, the Authority is working on a marketing campaign on digital platforms to promote the benefit of using licensed immigration advisers. Further details will be available in our next newsletter.

Tribunal Decisions

The Immigration Advisers Complaints and Disciplinary Tribunal (the Tribunal) has recently published a decision in the matter of RH v Ji [2021] NZIACDT 26. This matter involved an immigration adviser, Mr Ji, who has appeared before the Tribunal several times and has failed to fully take part in the disciplinary process.

Mr Ji was:

• censured,
• ordered to pay a penalty of $5,000,
• ordered to refund and pay compensation of $2,000, and
• prohibited from re-applying for a licence for the maximum period of 2 years.

In the decision the Tribunal stated:

…Mr Ji has already been given a chance. This is not the first dishonest misconduct by him upheld by the Tribunal… the earlier complaints to the Authority and even the upholding of the first two complaints and the sanctioning of Mr Ji by the Tribunal have not led to any greater degree of professionalism… Mr Ji’s conduct is also aggravated by his lack of engagement with the Tribunal until the sanctions stage of the process, something he has done before… Mr Ji contends his misconduct is isolated, not systemic. That is plainly incorrect… Mr Ji says he has learned from the polytechnic paper, but the Tribunal cannot be confident given the widespread nature of his misconduct over such a prolonged period… He says he has learned ethical considerations, but being truthful is not something that should require any formal instruction… Consumers should be protected from Mr Ji.

New decisions are appearing regularly and I encourage you to save the following link as a bookmark.

Read recent Tribunal decisions(external link) – Ministry of Justice