Another instance of pseudolegal argument in R v Sweet [2021] QDC 216 where the Court states
The essence of the applicant’s argument is that he possesses two distinct personas. One the ‘real live flesh and blood man’ and the other a ‘straw man’ or ‘dummy corporation’. The former is designated in the applicant’s material as ‘Kym-Anthony:’[ and the latter as KYM ANTHONY SWEET. According to the applicant’s argument, the real person is not subject to the laws of Queensland, and the charges should be dismissed. Merely setting out the argument is sufficient to show it is nonsense. It is apparent that the applicant is one of a group of people who for some years have attempted, universally without success, to avoid the operation of laws with which they do not wish to comply. The term ‘organised pseudo legal commercial argument’ litigants (OPCA) was coined by Rooke ACJ in Meades v Meades to describe adherents to these discredited theories. The ideas promoted by OPCA litigants emerged, of course, in the United States. They have since spread to most parts of the common law world, including Queensland. Recognising that the arguments presented by OPCA litigants are largely incoherent, if not incomprehensible, courts have been increasingly willing to dismiss their claims summarily. While I think the present application is devoid of merit, I do propose to mention at least some reasons why that is so, in the hope that it might dissuade similar pointless applications in the future.
[4] The ‘straw man’ argument has its origins in the premise that human beings do not inherently possess a legal personality. Instead, some separate legal identity is imposed upon them (through birth certificates and the like) by the government. This process creates a kind of contract, but one that can be repudiated by the human being, usually through a declaration or affidavit (in this case the applicant’s ‘Affidavit of the Truth’) and ‘surrendering’ the birth certificate. The purported effect of such repudiation is to render the human being immune to the laws of the relevant polity. The processes adopted by OPCA litigants to achieve this repudiation can be arcane. Some of the language used, and documents relied upon, resemble spells or incantations.
[5] The present case is no exception. A number of the applicant’s documents have affixed what appear to be fingerprints in red ink, and an extract of his birth certificate was sent to the registry accompanied by a commemorative coin. One document is headed ‘Evidence-Claim-of-live-life-certificate’. Its contents are even less comprehensible than its title. Other documents contain references to overseas law, such as the Uniform Commercial Code of the United States. Some of the applicant’s documents have the appearance of form documents, and it seems to be common for overseas based charlatans to exploit the gullible by selling these form documents as ‘solutions’ to a variety of legal problems. None of the documents are of any legal effect whatsoever.
[6] In Australia, a human being is also a legal person. An adult human being with full capacity can sue and be sued. They are subject to the criminal laws of this state.These fundamental propositions cannot be doubted. It is true that a natural person can create a legal entity that has a distinct legal personality – such entities are commonly called companies – but this is an adjunct to, rather than a replacement for, the legal personality of the human being. One way of illustrating why this must be so is to consider the consequences of the ability to ‘renounce’ legal personhood. The law has at times recognised categories of person who did not possess a legal personality. These categories included, before 1833, slaves, who were regarded as chattel property, could be bought and sold, and who had no rights under the law. At times women and children were thought not to possess a legal personality. Blackstone regarded children as the property of their fathers, and women have been regarded as chattels without a distinct legal personality. The fates of people who were in these categories were rarely pleasant. If the applicant were somehow able to renounce his legal personality, he would become a human being without rights. He would be mere property. Such an outcome would be antithetical to our society and system of laws.
[7] For these reasons I reject the applicant’s argument he is constituted by two separate legal entities. But even if I were wrong about that, the argument can do him no good in the face of a criminal prosecution brought under the statute law of Queensland. The Criminal Code provides in section 7: (1) When an offence is committed, each of the following persons is deemed to have taken part in committing the offence and to be guilty of the offence, and may be charged with actually committing it, that is to say – (a) every person who actually does the act or makes the omission which constitutes the offence ... An ‘offence’ is defined by section 2 to be: an act or omission which renders the person doing the act or omission liable to punishment ...
[8] Criminal liability attaches to a person where they ‘do the act or one or more acts in a series which constitutes or constitute the offence’.On any view of the present allegations, that could not be the ‘straw man’ or ‘dummy corporation’ mentioned by the applicant. The applicant’s own writings describe this purported alternate persona as ‘an artificial person’, a ‘legal entity’, ‘an artificial legal person’ and a ‘legal fiction’. Even if it existed in law, it is not capable of doing the act or acts that attract criminal liability. Of the two entities claimed by the applicant to exist – the applicant as ‘a real live flesh and blood man’ and the ‘straw man’ – the only one who could have done the acts that constitute the offences is the applicant, constituted in the corporeal form of the person who appeared in court to make this application. That is the person who was charged by the police, committed to stand trial by a Magistrate and against whom the present indictment was presented. That person is subject to the criminal law of this State and may be found to be criminally liable for his own acts. Even if the applicant possesses a ‘legal split-personality’, a proposition I reject, it could not alter this reality.
In State of New South Wales v Kiskonen (Preliminary) [2021] NSWSC 915 the Court states
The defendant’s personal circumstances and the relevant history
The defendant was born in March 1970 and is 51 years of age. He works as a truck driver and at the time of arrest lived with his (de-facto) wife and two sons. He has a criminal record involving driving offences in 1997 and a destroy and damage property in 2014. He came to police attention in September 2019 in the context of an assault charge involving a neighbour. His behaviour at Picton Local Court in October 2019 was odd in that he denied that he was the named defendant and asserted that arresting police were, by arresting him, committing crimes that should be tried in the Hague. The Magistrate determined that if he, Mr Kiskonen was not in fact the defendant, then the person who was the defendant needed to be arrested and that led to a warrant being issued. The defendant was duly arrested at Court and the proceedings continued. He failed to appear on 29 October 2019, leading to other charges.
All of this led to his coming under the observation of the New South Wales Police Fixated Persons Unit which, having observed him for a period, concluded, via DSC Gatward in December 2019, that he was “not a threat at that time”.
However concerns about him continued and he was observed during both 2019 and 2020. DSC Reason in his affidavit sets out the bases upon which he holds concerns about the defendant as a member of the “United Kingdom of Australia”:
“[6] The United Kingdom of Australia ("UKOA") is an organisation which holds beliefs that are commonly referred to as those of the sovereign citizen movement. This means that they do not consider the laws of Australia to be legitimate, nor do they believe that such laws should or do apply to them. The ideologies of the sovereign citizen movement have their origins in a number of anti-government movements which emerged in the United States of America in the 1970s. UKOA is one of a number of sovereign citizen groups and individuals which I have been monitoring since commencing duties at the Fixated Persons Investigation Unit in 2018.
[7] UKOA members adhere to a set of pseudo-legal theories which descend directly from American sovereign citizen theories, but which were adapted for the Australian context by Steven Spiers ("Mr Spiers"), born 27 December 1973. Mr Spiers advocates for an alternative history of the world wherein both the United States of America and the United Kingdom were taken over by "world bankers" due to their various war debts.
[8] The original American ideology from which the UKOA thinking has been appropriated is more forthright in acknowledging that the "world bankers" are to be understood as Jewish. This latent anti-Semitism, along with an allied anti-Catholicism, is an undercurrent throughout UKOA thought. This can be seen in social media posts and other media published on the internet, both in overt reference to supposed Jewish and Catholic influence, as well as coded language such as "world bankers" and "occupiers".
[9] In UKOA theories, as a Dominion, Australia too is believed to come under the administration of these "world bankers" despite being supposedly awarded its own "Kingdom" at the Treaty of Versailles. Ultimately, the Australian people were supposedly tricked into accepting occupation and slavery, through the use of birth certificates which mortgage the individual to the corporation and represent an acceptance of the corporate law. In some manner, this corporation is believed to have ties to the Vatican. UKOA members believe that, as civilians in an occupied country, they have protections under the various laws of armed conflict which exempt them from the authority of police, the judicial system and the laws of the Federal and State Governments.
[10] Mr Spiers claims to have taken up the vacant line of authority of the Australian "Kingdom" and has subsequently been declared by his followers as the "king" of UKOA. His two books, Realm and Man" and "Realm and Commonwealth", constitute the central documents of the belief system. Also important is a document entitled "Timeline" which was authored by Juha Kiskonen ("Mr Kiskonen"), born [REDACTED] 1970, and a document entitled "Bill of Rights-1" which is of uncertain authorship. The stated aim of the UKOA movement is to declare the "true" Kingdom of Australia, remove its members from the authority of Australian law and place them instead under the authority of both "King" Spiers and an idiosyncratic conception of the common law. Ultimately, they believe that the Australian government and its occupying forces will be ejected from Australia and various police, judges, politicians and so on, will be executed after being tried by military tribunals under the authority of the Hague. The interest in executing public officials is a recurrent theme, appearing in videos, memes and online discussion distributed online.
[11] Prior to the involvement of Mr Kiskonen and, in particular, the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic, Mr Spiers was one of many theorists in the Australian sovereign citizen community. His abrasive interpersonal style and claim to be the Australian monarch tended to alienate others and led to him being the subject of considerable ridicule. This changed noticeably when the COVID-19 pandemic appeared to contribute to a sudden interest in conspiracy theories about the virus and concerns over quarantine restrictions. Many individuals searched for answers via social media and encountered sovereign citizen ideology, which appeared to offer an answer to these concerns. Many individuals appeared to draw upon the involvement of Mr Kiskonen who took the UKOA doctrine and explained it in a simpler, less hostile and more charismatic fashion. His authorship of the "Timeline" document, his numerous YouTube videos, and online commentary meant that individuals could access UKOA theory in a simpler and more entertaining fashion. Based upon the engagement with the material online that I observed in my surveillance of UKOA internet sites, this appeared to be more popular than reading Mr Spiers' books, which are voluminous, poorly written, arcane and somewhat convoluted. Conversations I have had with members of UKOA tend to reference the works of Mr Kiskonen more frequently and specifically than those of Mr Spiers. The latter are revered, but it is unclear how many followers of the UKOA have read them in any detail.
[12] Mr Kiskonen administers a YouTube account, "John K", which has 1,930 subscribers, and two Facebook accounts, "Juha Kulevi Kiskonen" and "Juha Kiskonen", which are followed by 926 and 950 people respectively. UKOA also has had a number of Facebook groups in which Mr Kiskonen has also been active, including the discontinued group "Remaining Loyal to the Kingdom of Australia", which had 2,300 members, and the successor site, "Introduction to the ANZAC Research Group", which has 1,500 members. These are believed to be the public sites from which more dedicated members are eventually invited to closed groups for further discussion. It has been my observation that Mr Kiskonen's posts, and his videos in particular, were a major focal point for UKOA. Videos produced by Mr Spiers were often introduced and referred to by Mr Kiskonen through his various formats.
[13] Mr Kiskonen's YouTube channel was a major focal point of the movement and a venue from which he regularly told his followers that they did not have to obey the law or police and encouraged confrontation (for example, the YouTube videos "Notice to police", 27 July 2020; "New South Police have a lot to answer for", 5 May 2020; "Only citizens can be fined by police", 11 April 2020; "NSW Police are getting the picture", 20 May 2020; "Police, Treaties and the Common Law of War", 7 May 2020; "NSW Police take notice", 6 May 2020"; "There are rules we must follow:, 1 May 2020). In a YouTube video on 26 June 2020 ("How to get off the citizen-ship"), Mr Kiskonen told viewers that they were actually required to ignore the law as subjects of UKOA. On 27 July 2020, (YouTube video "Notice to Police") he stated that he would no longer be attending court when required to do so. He suggested that he would not be pursued in regard to his non-appearance as the courts and police would know he was beyond their jurisdiction.
[14] On 25 May 2020, Mr Kiskonen posted a video on YouTube in which he indicated that Mr Spiers had been declared King of Australia and encouraged people to make the oaths of allegiance. This was followed by an online campaign, through YouTube and Facebook, of getting as many individuals to swear allegiance as possible. As part of the emergence of the kingdom, a campaign of raising the red ensign flag at war memorials across Australia was undertaken, beginning with Mr Kiskonen doing so at Campbelltown on 17 July 2020. It is believed that Mr Kiskonen declared himself to be the "Lord Mayor of Campbelltown" on this occasion.
[15] The red ensign flag - and specifically an early version of it - is used by UKOA as their flag. UKOA adherents believe that it signals their jurisdiction and that, by flying it, they render themselves immune from action by police under International Law. Mr Spiers and others have advocated a theory that this is a "Land flag" which places them outside the jurisdiction of "Admiralty Law" as represented by the blue Australian National Flag.
[16] On 4July 2021, Mr Kiskonen announced that UKOA would be holding an "Australia Day" ceremony on 31 July 2020. This was to occur at the main war memorial in each state capital. Police subsequently learned that this was intended to be a day at which the Kingdom of Australia was to be declared and the red ensign flag was to be consecrated. It was also intended to remove any Australian National Flags from the monuments and replace them with the red ensign. In his video Mr Kiskonen outlined plans for "mass oaths" and an intent to put the Government of Australia "on notice". This was to be the most significant event in UKOAs history to this date. Mr Kiskonen spent a great deal of time and money organising this event, which he comments on in his videos, and included Mr Kiskonen writing speeches, purchasing flags and having flyers printed. While Mr Kiskonen was ultimately arrested prior to the event, simultaneous events did go ahead in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth and Adelaide. With the exception of Adelaide, these individuals were prevented from interfering with the memorials through intervention of police.
[17] Prior to their "Australia Day" ceremony on 31 July 2020, UKOA had a considerable online following in most Australian states with a smaller group of serious adherents who had sworn formal oaths to the "king" and who made UKOA a central part of their lives. Based on my investigations, I estimate that the latter group comprised approximately 100 persons situated mostly in Victoria, New South Wales, Western Australia and Queensland. The group had a managing body, the "Australian Royal Counsel" [sic], a number of subcommittees, and was appointing its own local officials to districts within which the members lived. A bureaucratic administrative process emerged in which communications were carried out through formal minutes, document transmission policies and an online document management system administered by Mr Spiers. ...
[23] I continued to monitor the social media activity of Mr Kiskonen, Mr Spiers and the UKOA community as part of my monitoring and investigation activities for the Fixated Persons Investigation Unit. Over a period of months, I observed increased activity and rhetoric indicating that Mr Kiskonen and Mr Spiers were beginning to formalise the UKOA community and were increasingly advising their members that they were above the law. As detailed above, Mr Kiskonen posted a number of videos specifically referring to the police. From May to July 2020, I was aware that Detective Senior Constable Gatward was receiving emails from Mr Kiskonen. These emails caused both Detective Senior Constable James Gatward and I to form the opinion that Mr Kiskonen was becoming increasingly radical, as he was becoming increasingly passionate about his beliefs, strident in his opinions and increasingly focussed on his supposed immunity from the law and on the eventual execution of traitors, and was attempting to recruit Detective Senior Constable Gatward into UKOA.
[24] I also became aware of plans to hold a UKOA "Australia Day" ceremony on 31 July 2020. Mr Kiskonen's YouTube videos indicated that Mr Kiskonen was working at an increasingly frantic pace to get preparations in place for this event. He referred to not having had enough sleep on a number of occasions and spoke a number of times about how busy he was. I am aware that he was writing speeches, having brochures printed, ordering flags, designing ceremonies and liaising with individuals in a number of other states. His level of activity at this time was noticeably higher.
[25] On 23 July 2020, Detective Senior Constable James Gatward showed me an email response that he intended to send to Mr Kiskonen, in which he responded to Mr Kiskonen's request to explain why he did not believe the UKOA doctrine. I agreed with Detective Senior Constable Gatward that it was important to attempt to resolve this issue in Mr Kiskonen's mind to prevent him from believing he had support for his ideas within NSW Police.
[26] On 27 July 2020, as I foresaw the potential for violent confrontation, I advised other relevant law enforcement agencies of the plans by UKOA to attend major war memorials in Australian capitals and conduct various ceremonies, remove any national flags there and raise their own red ensign in its place.
[27] Also on 27 July, Mr Kiskonen posted a video on YouTube entitled "Notice to Police" in which he appeared to make a threat towards Detective Gatward and to police generally. At this time, I began preparations to arrest Mr Kiskonen and took over the role of officer in charge from Detective Gatward.” These activities led to the arrest of the defendant at his home on 30 July 2020. He was charged with two counts of “use carriage service to menace/harass and/or offend” and with firearm offences related to a “gel-blaster pistol” found at his home. According to DSC Reason’s affidavit, the defendant’s take on his own activities was that his videos were not threatening, but “telling the truth about what would happen”. DSC Reason noted that the “Australia Day Ceremony” discussed in the defendant’s posts did go ahead on 31 July 2020, with UKOA members attending war memorials in Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Perth, Brisbane, Cairns, Mackay, Launceston, Geelong and Canberra. DSC Reason said that the ceremonies in Sydney, Melbourne and Perth all exceeded 20 attendees and attendees were arrested or moved on in Melbourne and Sydney.
In State of New South Wales v Hardy (Final) [2021] NSWSC 900 the Court quotes expert reports by Dr Mark Pitcavage, a Senior Research Fellow with the ADL’s Center on Extremism -
“The sovereign citizen movement is a longstanding anti-government extremist political movement that originated in the United States but has since spread to the entire English-speaking world and even some countries beyond. The movement is generally considered a right-wing extremist movement, but some of its beliefs and tactics have also been adopted by some who would not consider themselves part of the right.”
Dr Pitcavage explained that Terry Nichols, the accomplice to the Oklahoma City bomber, Timothy McVeigh, was himself an SCM member (Exhibit B, page 490).
Dr Pitcavage explained the spread of the SCM to Australia and New Zealand (Exhibit B, page 491):
“In the early 2000s, some of the same American sovereign gurus who helped bring the movement to Canada began to show up in Australia and New Zealand, allowing the sovereign citizen movement to develop a foothold in those countries as well. A few years later, the same thing happened to Ireland and Great Britain, aided by the tremendous growth in the reach of social media, which allowed sovereign citizen ideas to spread very far and wide—and very quickly. In the United States, the great recession and related mortgage/foreclosure crisis of 2008-2010 spawned yet another major resurgence for the movement, allowing it to spread still further.”
Dr Pitcavage explained that, because of its nature, the SCM appeals most strongly to those opposed to government authority with this being demonstrated in a number of contexts in Australia as well as the United States. He explained, as well, what is sometimes described as the survivalist movement and the association of promoters of survivalism with extremist views (Exhibit B, pages 493-495).
Dr Pitcavage explained that “most survivalists pose no threat to their neighbours or their community and typically seek to be left alone, although, as with any group of people, there can be survivalists who can be angry or volatile” (Exhibit B, page 495). He observes that there is overlap between the SCM and the survivalist subculture (Exhibit B, page 495). ...
Dr Pitcavage explained some features of the Defendant’s conduct which indicated his association with SCM ideology (Exhibit B, page 497):
“Other evidence also points to Mr. Hardy's familiarity with sovereign citizen ideology. For example, it is very common for sovereign citizens to spell their names with punctuation within their names. Sovereign citizens often claim they do this to separate their "Christian appellation" from their government-given or tribal/clan names, although sometimes they have other explanations. Using the most common such style, a sovereign citizen whose name is Lisa Elizabeth Masterson might write her name as Lisa-Elizabeth: Masterson, putting a dash between her first and middle names and a colon, semi-colon or comma between her middle and last names. Mr. Hardy has used this form of his name on his Linkedin social media profile, in two different versions: 1) Christopher-Bruce: Ingham-Hardy and 2) Christopher-Bruce-Ingham-Hardy. In addition, Mr. Hardy frequently puts a copyright mark next to his name, which is also a sovereign citizen indicator. In 2001, many sovereign gurus began claiming that one could copyright their own name, after which any unauthorized use of their name by anybody could make that person or entity subject to fines or judgments.”
Dr Pitcavage explained the concept of “redemption theory” and stated that, from the documents and manuals downloaded by the Defendant in his Internet searches, the Defendant “has evinced a particular interest in redemption theory and its application to Australia and himself” and observed that the Defendant “also seems to have had at least a passing interest in survivalism as many right-wing extremists do” (Exhibit B, page 499).
In a further report dated 5 February 2021 (Exhibit A, pages 283-306), Dr Pitcavage addressed specific topics. With respect to the Defendant’s affidavit bearing red ink fingerprints with the Defendant’s signature (see [70] above), Dr Pitcavage said (Exhibit A, page 286):
“Regardless of the country in which they appear, sovereign citizen ideology is centered around the notion that an earlier or original version of the government of that country was infiltrated and subverted by a longstanding conspiracy, and turned into an illegitimate and tyrannical government. However, by taking certain steps or filing certain papers, knowledgeable individuals can in essence divorce themselves from the illegitimate, de facto government, after which it has no authority or jurisdiction over them, and they can ignore its laws, regulations, taxes, and so forth.”
By way of further explanation for this practice, Dr Pitcavage stated (Exhibit A, page 287):
“Sovereign-related thumbprints usually appear over an actual signature, but can sometimes appear next to them, or in a location specified by a form or document; as with most things related to the sovereign citizen movement, no practice is entirely universal. Some sovereign citizen gurus teach that signatures should not only be accompanied by a thumbprint but also by a postage stamp. Most sovereign citizen leaders tell their followers that the thumbprints should be in ink of a specific color. The majority of such leaders promote red as the color to use, although there are sovereign citizens who insist that blue ink, or some other color of ink, is proper. Some sovereign citizens will actually use blood rather than red ink for thumbprints on documents.”
By reference to the affidavit marked by the Defendant with red ink thumbprints, Dr Pitcavage stated (Exhibit A, page 289): “The most obvious hallmarks of sovereign citizen connections within the affidavit are the red prints that appear on every page in the spaces marked ‘deponent,’ as well as in other places in the document, such as over certain dates.”
Dr Pitcavage described a further SCM indicator in the Defendant’s affidavit (Exhibit A, page 289):
“Another sovereign citizen indicator appears on page 84 of the affidavit, which contains an e-mail sent from Mr. Hardy to someone else. In this e-mail, Mr. Hardy signs his name with a copyright symbol following. Since 2001, it has been a common sovereign citizen belief that one can copyright one's own name and that thereafter no person or entity can use that person's name without their permission—should they do so, they could be fined or charged a large amount of money. Sovereigns who believe this theory will often include a copyright symbol with a printed or typed signature.”
Finally, Dr Pitcavage referred to a further feature of the Defendant’s affidavit which had the hallmarks of SCM adherence (Exhibit A, page 289):
“Finally, page 94 of the affidavit reproduces another e-mail apparently sent by Mr. Hardy. This e-mail contains several legal phrases that sovereign citizens frequently use in inappropriate contexts, including "an unrebutted affidavit is truth in law" and "all law is based in truth." It also contains a mailing address in which the digits of the postcard do not appear in numeric form but are written out: two two nine oh. Sovereign citizens have conspiracy theories about postal/zip codes that frequently cause them to render such code in unorthodox or unusual ways, or to omit them entirely. They also have similar tics about other elements of mailing addresses, including sometimes writing out numbers as words. Being an American, I do not know how unusual it would be for an Australian to write "N.S.W. two two nine oh" as part of an address, but I assume that is not the typical practice and if this is so, then this may be another possible sovereign citizen identifier.”
