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+# Kiribati: recovered court cases and gaps after the colonial law — 23 October 2026
+
+This batch adds five events (2015, 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2021), revises the three existing history entries, writes two articles and rewrites the existing colonial-law article. All fourteen profile sections now use inline keyed citations. Categories and tags are checked against the current rules. Scores and legal-status classifications are preserved: **9 overall**, recreational illegal, medical limited, access 0.
+
+## Recovering the judgments
+
+The earlier review could not read the 2018 PacLII judgment. Direct PacLII, RMS, CGI, RTF and WorldLII routes still returned 403 or 410. Internet Archive CDX and raw archived captures succeeded. The full primary court bodies were saved as HTML and extracted locally. Public citations link the exact readable archived court copies, not the unavailable live pages. Exact URLs and metadata are in `tmp/history-kiribati-gap-2026-10-23/sources.json`.
+
+A commercial guide was used only to locate court citations and links. Its legal conclusions, cannabinoid taxonomy, sentence summaries and claims about complete coverage are not relied upon. RNZ is independently cited only to identify the cannabis nature of the 2015 charges; the court supplies the actual penalties used here. The actual judgments were then retrieved and read:
+
+- **Republic v Morlier [2015] KIHC 82**, Criminal Case 9/2015, **23 October 2015** (`case2015.html/.txt`). The court adopted the lawyers’ agreed sentencing proposal following guilty pleas. It imposed nine months and A$2,000 on cultivation, nine months and A$2,000 on prohibited import, and two months and A$400 on immigration. **All imprisonment terms run concurrently**, so the aggregate is **nine months**, less custody since **19 April 2015**, with A$4,400 total fines. The yacht, two engines, vessel-monitoring equipment and radios were forfeited under section 39. RNZ’s full 4 November 2015 report was separately retrieved and read (`rnz2015sentence.html/.txt`), and identifies cannabis planting among the charges; the sentence itself uses generic offence labels, so RNZ is cited for that identification. RNZ reports 22 months and mentions an earlier sovereignty sentence. The recovered 23 October judgment establishes nine concurrent months for its three counts. Additional proceedings and the difference between the totals remain unresolved; no complete aggregate across all proceedings is inferred, and concurrent/default terms are not added together. The published sentence does not give a plant count or cannabis weight, so none is supplied.
+- **Republic v Afonso — Sentence [2016] KIHC 6**, Criminal Case 29/2016, **7 June 2016**, on Kiritimati (`case2016...`). The court accepted a Portuguese sailor’s prescribed medicinal purpose but treated the marijuana as a prohibited import. The text expressly records **0.03 grams**, which is preserved as the sentence’s stated figure, not silently changed to kilograms. It imposed A$1,600 with three months in default and another A$400 with one month in default. The text calls the immigration conviction Count 4 in its reasoning but labels the second fine Count 2; the public narrative does not invent a reconciliation. Health, a guilty plea and cooperation affected sentence; the yacht was not forfeited. This is an enforcement event applying existing import controls, not a new national refusal of a medical programme or proof all prescription preparations were illegal.
+- **Republic v Kourabi [2018] KIHC 14**, preliminary ruling **17 May 2018** (`case2018-pretrial...`), was read for the accused’s written statement, caution and the no-case submission. It is not added as another event or confused with the final conviction.
+- **Republic v Kourabi [2018] KIHC 18**, Criminal Case 29/2017, **21 May 2018** (`case2018-archive...`). The court required knowledge as part of possession. It relied on the fisheries officer’s own statement, testimony, keeping and use of the material, and police evidence connecting it to material tested in Afonso’s case. It declined to require a new test in these circumstances. This is not presented as a scientific validation of police identification or abolition of proof requirements. The final date line incorrectly says May 2016; the heading/catalogue, 2018 case number context and subsequent sentence establish 2018. The event is dated to sentencing the next day, whose final date is unambiguous.
+- **Republic v Kourabi — Sentence [2018] KIHC 20**, **22 May 2018** (`case2018-sentence...`). The court imposed a fine after considering the officer’s public role, first offence, cooperation and family obligations. **The amount is blank in the published text**, so no amount is invented. Four months is the default prison term if unpaid, not an immediate sentence of four months. The heading’s earlier hearing date is not used as the sentencing date. The judgment discusses employment consequences as a matter for the authorities; no dismissal is asserted.
+- **Republic v Folik [2021] KIHC 12**, Criminal Case 51/2020, **25 November 2021** (`case2021...`). This sentence follows a guilty plea and accepted facts. The small plant had belonged to the defendant’s deceased half-brother; his aunt gave it to him, and he knowingly placed it among flowers outside his house. It was about 30 cm high, with no evidence of use or dealing. Both parties proposed a fine. The court compared the Tongan Uaisele case and Kourabi, imposed **A$250**, payable by **31 December 2021**, with **one month in default**. The charge was possession, not cultivation, despite the living plant; the event and article retain that distinction. The family circumstances are in the accepted court facts, not reconstructed from secondary prose.
+
+These are specific outcomes and do not establish nationwide arrest frequency, routine jail, universal leniency or a safe possession allowance. They improve the profile’s evidence without inventing a new score step from one sentence. The earlier inaccessibility disclaimers are replaced by the actual decisions. Enforcement remains a calibration follow-up: the small-possession cases end in fines, while the cultivation/import case involved actual custody.
+
+## Primary statutes and regulations
+
+The government Trade Portal’s **27-page 1977 revised Dangerous Drugs Ordinance** was downloaded again (`ordinance.pdf`). Its SHA-256 matches the earlier `tmp/research-progress-pass3/ki-act.pdf`, allowing existing rendered pages to be checked against the exact same source. Commencement, definitions, sections 4–9, 13, 39 and the controlled-preparations schedule were reviewed through the scan/extraction and existing rendered pages. Printed page 17 was visually checked for penalties: its wording uses a High Court fine **and** imprisonment; the 2021 court describes the maximum as ten years **or** A$2,000 and in fact orders a fine. The revised profile attributes that maximum formulation to the court, and does not call the old printed text mandatory imprisonment. The full 1948 original and each intervening amendment remain unrecovered. The existing 1948 first-step date and FREE before vector are preserved; the revised descriptions distinguish the ordinance’s commencement from its positively recovered revised text and do not backdate the 1977 penalty wording.
+
+The complete **1980 Dangerous Drugs Regulations** (`regulations.pdf/.txt`) were read. Commencement is **21 February 1980**. Regulations 6, 9 and 11–12 address prescription possession, pharmacist preparation of extracts/tinctures and dispensing; 9 requires locked storage, 14 records, 15 two-year preservation, 16 restricts transfers, and 17 excludes Government Medical Services from these regulations. The profile describes the limited legal preparation framework without asserting available medicines, an operating patient service, lawful flower imports or permission to cultivate. Its existing `other` category is retained because the ordinance already separately controlled extracts/tinctures and earlier authorisations have not been reconstructed sufficiently to claim a first medical opening.
+
+The **1995 proceeds amendment**, including operative text, memorandum and certification, was reread from the earlier government PDF/extraction. It adds a two-year offence for unexplained property reasonably suspected to be drug proceeds, warrantless arrest and forfeiture. Attorney General Michael Takabwebwe’s **5 August 1995** memorandum connects it to a recent drug-import/possession prosecution and models abroad; no cannabis-specific details of that prosecution are invented. Passage was certified **15 August 1995**. Handwritten assent/publication/commencement endorsements remain insufficiently resolved for an exact operative day, so the event keeps year precision and explicitly describes passage. The new `unscored` reason concerns the proceeds-specific scope, not an ordinary user penalty change. The 2001 datura amendment remains outside the cannabis timeline.
+
+## The 2017 driving event
+
+The Land Transport Authority’s signed **Traffic Act 2017** was downloaded (`traffic2017.pdf`); scanned pages 6–7, 21–24, 72 and 73 were read by local Vision OCR, with pages **22 and 73 visually checked**. The certificate establishes parliamentary passage **21 August 2017**. Section 2 requires a **ministerial commencement notice**, not immediate operation on passage. That notice was not recovered. The new event therefore explicitly dates parliamentary adoption; it does not label that day as commencement. The explanatory memorandum calls the drug-driving provisions new, supporting `tightening`; the event is explicitly unscored because driving is a context measure, and its commencement evidence remains open.
+
+Sections 43 and 46 cover drug-influenced driving including a bicycle, deeming influence when saliva shows drugs in the system; the relevant paragraph does not specify a numeric THC cutoff or a separate driving-error requirement. Section 53(3) gives ten to twenty penalty units and six to twelve months’ disqualification; a further offence within five years under 53(4) carries twenty to fifty units, one to two years or both, plus one to two years’ disqualification. The profile retains zero-tolerance classification and states the units rather than inventing a current dollar tariff. Section 48 permits behavioural evidence/assessments if testing is unavailable. Section 47’s inconsistent breath/saliva refusal wording is not simplified into an unsupported cannabis-specific procedure. Actual devices, test deployment, latest implementing rules and the commencement notice remain follow-ups.
+
+## Other retrieved leads and scope limits
+
+Archived **Medicines Act 2018** and **Pharmacy and Poisons Ordinance** were recovered, as was the government Customs Act 2019 scan. They are retained as research leads rather than added as cannabis reforms without full historical and commencement checks. The Medicines Act requires a ministerial commencement notice and layers its requirements on the Dangerous Drugs Ordinance; it is not treated as an automatic legalisation of cannabis or a resolved repeal date for every earlier pharmacy rule. The old poisons list contains cannabis, but a consolidated listing is not independently backdated to 1949 here. No synthetic-cannabinoid exemption or absence of amendments is asserted from a partial search.
+
+## Verification and commit scope
+
+Verification checks five additions, three revised events, all tags/categories and inline references, all fourteen profile sections, internal links and the three article files (427, 440 and 417 words, four sections each). The score chain remains 100 → 9 at the existing first restriction with no direction warning. A full production build and rendered citation/API/export checks precede commit. The generated `site/` build is deleted after checking. Only these eight history IDs, the Kiribati profile, three article files and this memo are included; concurrent country, schema, documentation and archive changes are preserved.
+
+Verification completed: five additions, three revised entries, two new articles and the rewritten 1948 article all pass citation/category/tag/link checks; article lengths are 427, 440 and 417 words with four sections each. Fourteen profile blocks resolve their keyed sources. The production build passed with 3,907 pages. Rendered checks validated 92 citation links, internal/tag pages, citation-free machine exports and matching API/CSV score 9 with medical classification Limited. The country chain has no warnings, and `git diff --check` passed. The generated `tmp/history-kiribati-gap-2026-10-23/site/` directory was deleted after checking.