In Hepburn SC v Coward [2025] VCAT 784 the Tribunal - following up Hepburn SC v Coward [2024] VCAT 517 - states
Maureen Coward alleges that the Tribunal has no jurisdiction over her to hear and determine a prosecution for contempt because:
She contends that the State of Victoria, VCAT and the Hepburn Shire Council are the incorrect jurisdictions – see her submissions para 219 – 223;
She submits that she has the right to correct due process and jurisdiction – see her submissions para 224 – 225;
She submits that correct due process and jurisdiction – over what she calls ‘subjects of the Imperial crown’ accused of a crime – is governed by Imperial Law including all Imperial Acts, including the Commonwealth of Australia Constitution and Bill of Rights 1688 – see her submissions para 229 – 238; and
She submits that the Authority of Australian Governments is subject to the right to self-determination of whom she calls ‘the people’ who, she says, are ‘known in the title of the United Kingdom of Australia’ represented in title by the ‘Australian Privy Council’ and in title by the ‘Most Noble Order of the Desert Flame’ – see her submissions para 116 – 210. ...
In short, Maureen Coward submits she is not an Australian subject, that Victorian law does not apply (or that it does not apply to her), and that the State of Victoria, the Tribunal and the Shire have no jurisdiction over her for various reasons.
Maureen Coward also asserts that ‘all courts, police and government departments of every state who are now incorporated under ABN numbers’ are somehow invalid. She also asserts that their ‘acts statutes rules and regulations are governed by the Australia Act 1986’ which she says is somehow invalid. She also asserts she is being ‘coerced to joinder into a contract with the Hepburn Shire Council’ which she alleges has an ABN and she says is trying to extort who she calls ‘the people’ on trespass without following the ‘proper line of authority against we the people’.
She says she does not wish to partake in or against her ancestors’ lineage, or she says ‘take part in the foreign occupied administration government the State of Victoria’ which she alleges (along with the Treasury Corporation of Victoria) are both registered to the US SEC and that she does not have any contracts with what she calls these ‘entity corporations’. Maureen Coward, in an email to the Tribunal dated 17 May 2024, stated that the proceeding should be taken to a ‘higher court either county court or the high court’.
In response the Tribunal comments
... the legal issue for determination at this Preliminary Hearing is whether the Tribunal has jurisdiction to hear and determine an application for contempt of the Tribunal.
It clearly does.
Mrs Coward’s written and oral submissions are incorrect and misguided and have no foundation in law. She candidly states in her written submissions that she is ‘a little familiar with the legal world’. If her submissions have been prepared by her, she is legally mistaken.
Section 137 of the VCAT Act confers statutory jurisdiction on VCAT to hear and determine a prosecution for contempt of the Tribunal. That jurisdiction is well established by law.
It is also well established that the categories of contempt include where there has been non-compliance with an order made by VCAT: see s 137(1)(ea).
The Court of Appeal has expressly held that VCAT has the jurisdiction under s 137 of the VCAT Act to deal with contempt in accordance with that statutory provision. The power to deal with contempt extends to punishing the disobedience of an order of the Tribunal and to enforce compliance with it, including by issuing a fine or imposing a sentence of imprisonment.
Accordingly, Maureen Coward – being the person against whom the Tribunal has made its Enforcement Orders – is bound by those orders and the Tribunal has undoubted contempt jurisdiction over her.
Maureen Coward’s arguments are what have been categorised in decisions of superior courts in Australia and overseas as belonging to a collection of erroneous beliefs or arguments sometimes called ‘pseudo-legal commercial arguments’. Such arguments have been rejected in common law courts and legal systems around the world as having no legal foundation.
Maureen Coward referred to various irrelevant Australian court decisions in support of her arguments and an out-of-context discussion in a transcript of hearing from a case before another court in another Australian state.
There is no legal basis for any contention in this case for Mrs Coward to assert that the laws of the Victorian Parliament do not apply to her and bind her. I also accept the Council’s submission that there is no inconsistency between s 137 of the VCAT Act and any Commonwealth law.
Maureen Coward is a person who, like all ordinary human beings, in accordance with the rule of law is amenable to and answerable to the laws applicable to ordinary persons. She is equal under the law, not exceptional.
Maureen Coward’s assertion of some citizen or other status giving her immunity from the law is legally flawed. The rights, freedoms and privileges people enjoy with others in society also carry responsibility to adhere to its laws, and the legal obligations they place on people, whether or not a person believes they do. Society’s laws apply to people who may or may not be citizens and apply with equal effect whether or not a person believes they are a citizen or subject to the law.
Maureen Coward’s assertions of invalidity about Victorian law, and her assertions about orders of the Tribunal or actions of the Shire Council in seeking to enforce the Enforcement Order against her as somehow being invalid or somehow not applying to her, are also erroneous and have no legal foundation.
Her arguments amount to legal nonsense and are incapable of coherent legal argument.
The Tribunal in its commendably clear 2014 decision explained
... private ownership rights need to be considered in the situation where (as part of having a functioning and workable community) we can all own certain things, but still need to comply with relevant laws and regulations prescribing how each such thing is used.
To use two simple examples: A person who owns a plane still needs to fly the plane in accordance with extensive Federal aviation safety laws and regulations. Without this ‘safety regime’, it would become inherently unsafe for any of us to travel by air.
To promote safer driving on our Victorian roads, a person who owns a car is legally required by State laws to wear a seat belt and only drive a road-registered car. Hence whether you own a car or are hiring one, either way, there are some real restrictions to how the car must be used on public roads. Surely none of us want to be driving on unregulated public roads where you might encounter/have a crash with unroadworthy cars and/or unlicensed dangerous drivers.
In the same manner, the private ownership of land confers certain rights, but still operating within the broader framework of those relevant Victorian laws and regulations that apply day-to-day. These two features of ‘the private rights of a landowner’ and ‘complying with relevant laws and regulations’ are not mutually exclusive, but work alongside each other.
These basic concepts and parameters are reinforced by the Queensland Supreme Court decision Bone v Mothershaw [2002] QCA 120. The key feature of this case for our purposes was it involved a dispute whether certain Queensland laws regulating ‘tree removal’ were valid. In upholding the validity of these contested laws, it is very on point and significant that Justice McPherson states at [19] that “In addition to historical considerations like these, a mere reference in a statute to an interest in land that is recognised at common law, such as an estate in fee simple, does not have the effect of transforming that interest, or the rights incidental to it, into statutory interests and rights”.
Similarly His Honour at [25] says in relation to the private landowner in question who was affected by the ‘tree removal’ laws – “He retains unimpaired, for what it is worth, his estate in fee simple absolute of the land”.
The key point here is that Bone v Mothershaw reinforces the fundamental feature of our modern society that where tension arises, our private interests (including the notion of ‘fee simple’) are constrained by those relevant laws and regulations that provide a legal framework for all of us to together live a workable and civilised life (not the other way around).
