'New Zealand' is a corporation listed on the US Securities and Exchange Commission website (link).
The full name of this company is:
'HER MAJESTY THE QUEEN IN RIGHT OF NEW ZEALAND.'
A company is a corporation. A corporation is a voluntary association of individuals.
The SEC.gov website shows the annual report for the country company of New Zealand.
What is the US Securities and Exchange Commission?
The SEC was established by the United States Congress in 1934 as an independent, quasi-judicial regulatory agency during the Great Depression that followed the Crash of 1929. The main reason for the creation of the SEC was to regulate the stock market and prevent corporate abuses relating to the offering and sale of securities and corporate reporting. The SEC was given the power to license and regulate stock exchanges, the companies whose securities traded on them, and the brokers and dealers who conducted the trading.
To achieve its mandate, the SEC enforces the statutory requirement that public companies submit quarterly and annual reports, as well as other periodic reports.
Form of Government
The 'HER MAJESTY IN RIGHT OF NEW ZEALAND' corporation is a sovereign state with a democratic parliamentary government based on the Westminster system. Its constitutional history dates back to the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840, when the indigenous Maori people ceded sovereignty over New Zealand to the British Queen. New Zealand has the British monarch as titular Head of State. The Queen is represented in New Zealand by the Governor-General, appointed by her on the advice of the New Zealand Government.
As in the United Kingdom, constitutional practice in New Zealand is an accumulation of convention, precedent and tradition, and there is no single document that can be termed the New Zealand constitution. The Constitution Act 1986 has, however, updated, clarified and brought together in one piece of legislation the most important constitutional provisions that had been enacted in various statutes. It provides for a legislative body, an executive and administrative structure and specific protection for the judiciary.
Legislative power is vested in Parliament, a unicameral body designated the House of Representatives. It currently has 122 members, who are elected for three-year terms through general elections at which all citizens and permanent residents over 18 years of age are entitled to vote. Authority for raising revenue by taxation and for expenditure of public money must be granted by Parliament. Parliament also controls the government by its power to pass a resolution of no confidence or to reject a government proposal made a matter of confidence, in which event the government would be expected to resign.
The executive government of New Zealand is carried out by the Executive Council. This is a formal body made up of the Cabinet and the Governor-General, who acts on the Cabinet’s advice. The Cabinet itself consists of the Prime Minister and his/her Ministers, who must be chosen from among elected Members of Parliament. Each Minister supervises and is responsible for particular areas of government administration. Collectively, the Cabinet is responsible for all decisions of the government.
What is a company?
We think in languages and we describe our world with languages. That is why it is very important to know the true meaning of the words we are using. Lest we be deceived.
Here are some important dictionary definitions to give you a clear understanding of what these things really are.
- a number of individuals assembled or associated together;
- group of people. an assemblage of persons for social purposes.
- society collectively.
- a number of persons united or incorporated for joint action, esp. for business.
- Also called ship's company. a ship's crew, including the officers. a medieval trade guild.
- the Company, Informal . a nation's major intelligence-gathering and espionage organization, as the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency.
- a business enterprise.
—compare CORPORATION, PARTNERSHIP
- an association of individuals, created by law or under authority of law, having a continuous existence independent of the existences of its members, and powers and liabilities distinct from those of its members.
- any group of persons united or regarded as united in one body.
- the condition of a person or thing, as with respect to circumstances or attributes: a state of health.
- the structure, form, or constitution of something: a solid state any mode of existence
- status, rank, or position in life; station: He dresses in a manner befitting his state.
- the style of living befitting a person of wealth and high rank: to travel in state.
- a particular condition of mind or feeling: to be in an excited state.
- an abnormally tense, nervous, or perturbed condition: He's been in a state since hearing about his brother's death.
- a politically unified people occupying a definite territory; nation.
- the territory, or one of the territories, of a government.
- the body politic as organized for civil rule and government ( distinguished from church).
- the operations or activities of a central civil government: affairs of state.
- of, pertaining to, or consisting of citizens: civil life; civil society.
- of the commonwealth or state: civil affairs.
- of citizens in their ordinary capacity, or of the ordinary life and affairs of citizens, as distinguished from military and ecclesiastical life and affairs.
- of the citizen as an individual: civil liberty.
- befitting a citizen: a civil duty.
- of, or in a condition of, social order or organized government; civilized: civil peoples.
- of or pertaining to civil law.
- civil law the body of laws of a state or nation regulating ordinary private matters, as distinct from laws regulating criminal, political, or military matters. systems of law influenced significantly and in various ways by Roman law, as distinct from the common law and canon or ecclesiastical law.
the body of law developed from Roman law —compare COMMON LAW
the law established by a nation or state for its own jurisdiction the law that applies to private rights esp. as opposed to the law that applies to criminal matters —compare CRIMINAL LAW
the power, right, or authority to interpret, apply, and declare the law (as by rendering a decision) jurisdiction of the crime
NOTE: Jurisdiction determines which court system should properly adjudicate a case. Questions of jurisdiction also arise regarding quasi-judicial bodies (as administrative agencies) in their decision-making capacities.
Further Reading
- New Zealand is registered as a company, www.relatingtolife.com, 2010, link