In Carden v City of Wanneroo [2025] WASC 54 the Court has been unpersuaded by pseudolaw claims in a dispute involving a domestic privacy screen contrary to the Planning and Development Act 2005 (WA) and Building Act 2011 (WA).
It notes
the proposed merits of the appeal, the appellant's grounds of appeal comprise 33 pages. There are 62 separate 'grounds' identified in the document, but many of the 'grounds' comprise submissions founded upon incorrect or irrelevant legal bases, or assertions of misconduct against the learned magistrate, the legal practitioner representing the respondent, and the respondent's employees.
The remaining grounds advance pseudo‑legal propositions which are devoid of merit, incomprehensible, or both. For example, 'Ground: 51' reads in part:
In the Supreme Court of Western Australia in Wayne Kenneth Glew 2107 of 2008 and Governor of Western Australia CACV 20 of 2009 before CORAM: CORBOY J and Mr Leith, it was established that the name in all Capital Letters is a legal fiction a Body Corporate not the living man or woman present in the court the Supreme Court has no jurisdiction at law to process a living man or woman no jurisdiction, this proceedings in the Magistrate Court were commenced by Flesh and blood man who was converted by the Magistrates Court to a Legal Fiction Entity by the Prosecution Notice under Reg: 5. Under the system of law that operates in this state, only a 'person' can do or be deemed to have done 'an act or omission which renders the person doing the act or omission liable to punishment', Criminal liability attaches to a human being, the Living Man, the oxymoron System of Law in the State relied on by the State Courts, any Person before any Court is a Legal Fiction Entity, a Dead Entity Ward of the State.
The Court goes on to state
In Glew v The Governor of Western Australia Hasluck J dismissed arguments that certain Commonwealth and Western Australian legislation had been invalidly passed as frivolous and vexatious. The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal from that decision on the basis that the appeal was entirely without merit.
There is no reference in either decision to the proposition for which they are cited as authority by the appellant.
That proposition is devoid of merit. The suggestion that 'the name in all Capital Letters is a legal fiction a Body Corporate not the living man or woman present in the court' is an example of the 'straw man' fiction repeatedly rejected in all Australian, and other, courts.
he appellant's adoption of that fiction is evidenced by her reference to herself in 'Ground: 59' as 'the woman called 'Cil': Cilla‑Louise: of the Family: Carden: the living breathing woman', and her references to herself as 'Cil: Cilla‑Louise Carden' and 'Cil: Cilla‑Louise: of the family: Carden' in her affidavits filed in the course of the appeal, although her appeal notice was filed in the name Cilla‑Louise Carden.
As McKechnie J said in Re Magistrate M M Flynn; Ex parte McJannett:
[Finally, judges administer justice according to law. They are not required to expend judicial time, a scarce public resource, on applications that have no legal foundation and involve deluded understanding of the law.
On the hearing of the appeal, however, the appellant (with the assistance of a next friend) generally confined herself to submissions concerning issues of statutory construction, the identification of matters said to constitute a defence to the charge, including various limitation periods, and some form of estoppel.
... Finally, the appellant raised a series of points to the effect that she was not properly served with notice of the prosecution and of the date on which the charge was to be heard.
At the hearing of her appeal, the appellant submitted that there had not been proper service of the prosecution notice. She argued that: (a) the prosecution notice was required to be sealed by the Magistrates Court; (b) the prosecution notice was required to be served 21 days before the first return date; (c) the signature of the employee of the respondent issuing the notice was required to be witnessed; (d) the documents she received (being the prosecution notice and the court hearing notice) were not in the prescribed form; (e) those documents were not served by police; (f) she did not receive a statement of material facts; (g) she did not receive disclosure of confessional material.
Section 20(3)(a)(i) of the CPA provides that a prosecution for an offence may be commenced by an authorised person in relation to an offence. An authorised person is, relevantly, a person who is a public authority or an employee of a public authority.
The respondent is a public authority for the purposes of the CPA.
A prosecution is commenced by lodging a prosecution notice, signed in accordance with s 23 of the CPA. Section 23(2)(d) requires that the prosecution notice be signed by the person who is commencing the prosecution.
Section 23(1) of the CPA provides that sch 1 to the CPA has effect in relation to prosecution notices and charges in them.
Clause 3(1) of sch 1 requires that a prosecution notice identify the prosecutor. Clause 3(2) provides that, where a prosecution is being commenced by (relevantly) an employee of a public authority acting in the course of his or her duties, it is sufficient to name the public authority as the prosecutor if the individual who issues the notice is identified in the notice and it is signed in accordance with s 23 of the Act.
Consistent with cl 3(2), the prescribed form of a prosecution notice provides separately for the names of the 'prosecutor' and the 'person issuing this notice' to be inserted. The prescribed form does not provide for the signature of the person issuing the notice to be witnessed. To the contrary, s 28(5) of the CPA provides that the justice of the peace, prescribed court officer or magistrate who issues a court hearing notice in relation to a prosecution notice need not have been present when the prosecution notice was signed.
The prosecution notice issued to the appellant was reproduced in the text of the appellant's affidavit sworn 27 August 2024. The notice is stated to have been issued on 21 September 2021.
The prosecution notice identified the respondent as the prosecutor and an employee of the respondent, together with his position with the respondent, as required, and was signed on behalf of the respondent.
I adopt Vandongen J's analysis in Kelly v Fiander, without repeating it here, as to how the requirement that a prosecution notice be signed is met where the notice is lodged electronically with the Magistrates Court, as was evidently done in this case.
The appellant was unable to identify the source of the requirement that a prosecution notice be sealed by the Magistrates Court which she claimed had not been satisfied. There is nothing in the CPA to suggest that a prosecution notice must be sealed by the court. While both the Magistrates Court Act 2004 (WA) and the Magistrates Court (General) Rules 2005 (WA) make provision for the Court's seal, I have been unable to identify any requirement that a prosecution notice must be sealed as the appellant asserts. The prosecution notice was accordingly validly issued.
As for service, s 28(4) of the CPA provides that if an offender is not in custody, and the offence alleged is a simple offence, the prosecutor must issue a court hearing notice.
Section 3 of the CPA defines the term 'prosecutor' to mean the person who commenced the prosecution or a person who in court represents that person.
Section 4 of the Planning Act provides that the local government responsible for the enforcement of the observance of a local planning scheme or local interim development order is the responsible authority for the purposes of the Act.
It is convenient to deal at this stage with a contention repeated by the appellant in the course of the proceedings, relying upon Tey v Plotz, that the proper respondent to these proceedings was the employee of the respondent who authorised the issue of the prosecution notice.
Tey v Plotz does not support that contention. In that case, Jenkins J held that the 'WA Police' is not a person, corporation, statutory body or corporation sole, and consequently was 'not a body known to the law other than as a 'sufficient' name of a prosecutor as provided for in the Criminal Procedure Act sch 1'. In particular, her Honour held that 'WA Police' was not a public authority as that term is defined in the CPA.
Her Honour accordingly held that 'WA Police' was not the proper respondent to an appeal from a Magistrates Court prosecution.
Her Honour's reasoning has no application to the present circumstances, because, as already explained, a local government is a public authority and public authorities may commence prosecutions. Even if that were not the case, a local government is a body corporate with perpetual succession and a common seal, and therefore a legal person. Consistent with that status, proceedings may be taken by or against a local government in its corporate name.
The respondent was therefore correctly named as the prosecutor in the prosecution notice and as the respondent to the present appeal.