In DPP v James (Ruling) [2023] VCC 2452 - another pseudolaw judgment - James charged with assaulting an emergency worker on duty and resisting emergency workers on duty.
James unsuccessfully argues that the Road Safety Act 1986 (Vic) is invalid, asserting that
- the Road Safety Act was assented to on 23 December 1986 by a fictional character, being the ‘Queen of Australia’;
- the Road Safety Act has no application to a ‘free man or woman’;
- the ‘statute of monopolies’ precludes VicRoads from acting as a monopoly over matters such as registration and licencing;
- without a contract indicating consent, there can be no burden placed on free men and women; and that the Road Safety Act applies to ‘persons’ and
- the accused is not a ‘person’ but rather, is created in the image of God, and is entitled to the freedoms given by God.
The judgment states
In short, the accused argues that he is only subject to ‘common law’ and that State legislation, such as the Road Safety Act and the regulations made under that Act, have no application to him and are invalid. This contention has no foundation in law and must be rejected.
Arguments such as those advanced by the accused have been comprehensively rejected by the Supreme Court of Victoria. Relevantly, Justice J Dixon rejected similar arguments regarding the validity of the Road Safety Act 1986 in the case of Stefan v McLachlan [2023] VSC 501.
As to the argument that the accused was able to distinguish himself from a ‘legal person’ who was charged with the offences, Dixon J characterised the argument as ‘misconceived’, stating that the ‘natural and ordinary meaning of ‘person’ where it appears in the Act is ‘a reference to an individual human being’, further stating:
It is plainly wrong to assert that a natural person is not subject to statute law, only to common law and the principles of equity. All persons are subject to all law, whether its source be the Constitution, statute or judge made law.
As to the argument that the accused is a free man, created by God and not by the State, and that the Commonwealth Constitution does not grant legislative power to Parliament to affect the rights of a free man, a similar argument was also considered and rejected by Dixon J in Stefan v McLachlan, stating ‘such irrelevant matters cannot impugn’ the validity of the Road Safety Act or the jurisdiction of a Court to deal with matters under that Act.
The Supreme Court also rejected the contention that there is any requirement for a contract or consent to bind a free person, with Dixon J stating: ‘Regulatory schemes legislated by Parliament do not require the consent of every individual for the law to apply to that individual...the ‘consent of Victorian’s to statute law...follows from the election of parliamentarians to make laws for the peace, order and good governance of the State and their subsequent exercise of that legislative power’.
Prior to advancing these arguments, I provided the accused with a copy of the decision in Stefan v McLachlan and the other authorities to which I refer.
Finally, as to the question of whether the Road Safety Act is invalid by reason of it being assented to in the name of the sovereign, this argument has also been considered and rejected by the Supreme Court in Smart v City of Greater Geelong and in Sill v City of Wodonga, both of which were also provided to the accused. These cases stand for the proposition that the Constitution Act 1975 was properly assented to, and hence, s 16 of that Act gives the Parliament of Victoria ‘the power to make laws in and for Victoria in all cases whatsoever’. The Road Safety Act is such a law. The Road Safety Act was assented to on 23 December 1986 under the hand of the then Governor of Victoria, J. Davis McCaughey as recorded in Government Gazette 108. It is clear that that the Act was properly assented to. There is no foundation to the accused’s argument.
As stated by Byrne J in Smart v City of Wodonga, s 143(1) of the Evidence Act 2008 was enacted to prevent arguments like these being made. It is difficult to understand the basis of the accused’s argument that the ‘statute of monopolies’ invalidates the legislation. There is no basis to argue the provisions of the Road Safety Act, are invalid in law or are otherwise contrary to overriding “competition laws”.
In Stefan v McLachlan [2023] VSC 501 Dixon J states 'On the hearing of the appeal, the appellant identified himself as Alex Stefan and represented himself. His ’identity’ was an issue on the appeal'.
Stefan
contested that he was amenable to the jurisdiction of the Magistrates’ Court to hear and determine such charges and that, properly construed, the relevant statutory provisions did not apply to him. I will shortly explain more fully the arguments that he developed that warrant consideration on this appeal.
His amended notice of appeal raised 71 questions, described as questions of law. The appellant categorised those questions in the following way:
(a) Questions regarding the nature of the court;
(b) Questions regarding the allegiance, separation of powers, jurisdiction and compliance of the court with Chapter 3 of the Constitution;
(c) Validity of orders made by the Magistrates’ Court;
(d) Questions regarding the lawful status of the Victorian Department of Public Prosecutions and the prosecutor acting on behalf of the informant;
(e) Questions regarding the appellant’s status as a living man and personal representative of his legal person and limited liability for the debts of his legal person;
(f) Validity of the Road Safety Act 1986 (Vic);
(g) Lack of evidence of the informant’s claim that the Road Safety Act is a valid Act and that it applied to the appellant;
(h) The power of private companies to dictate to a living man enforcement without agreement or contract;
(i) Appellant’s honest claim of right, private administrative process and informant’s default;
(j) No injured party/corpus delecti;
(k) Misapplication of legal terms; and
(l) Application of legal terms.
The number of questions was a product of the appellant’s want of legal training. In substance, he did not contest the facts, he contested that court’s jurisdiction and its interpretation of the statute. ...
In oral submissions, the appellant distilled his arguments to some primary points, while inviting the court to rely on the full expression of his contentions in his written material, which I have done.
First, the appellant contended that he is ‘a living man in private jurisdiction’ as opposed to a ‘legal person in the public jurisdiction’. He submitted that, based on his ‘research’, private and public jurisdictions do not mix; private being the jurisdiction of living men and women and public jurisdiction being the jurisdiction of legal persons, whether they be a natural person, a company, a trust or any form of State-created entity. Living men and women are not subject to statutes: they are subject to the common law and to the rules of equity but, not having been created by the State, are not subject to statute law. Accordingly, the Magistrate, exercising a jurisdiction conferred by statute, had no authority to hear and determine the charges brought against a living man who is not a legal person.
Secondly, the Commonwealth Constitution does not permit the State to license travel and permits freedom of movement. While it may license commerce, the appellant was not engaged in commerce and was simply travelling in a private capacity. It was accordingly beyond the power of the police, on behalf of the State, to require the appellant to have or produce a licence. I pause to note that the appellant produced a licence when asked to do so and that licensing power is not an issue on this appeal. I need not say any more about why this submission is misconceived.
The appellant’s third point is that the Magistrate misinterpreted a number of key terms defined in the Road Safety Act. He contended that the magistrate erred in law in concluding that: (a) A Range Rover Discovery is a vehicle; (b) A car is a vehicle; (c) The appellant was the driver of the car.
He submitted that the Magistrate misunderstood the definition of the term ‘vehicle’. The appellant submitted that there is a distinction between the colloquial use of the term ‘vehicle’ and the legal definition in the Act. The Magistrate erred in concluding that the Range Rover that he was driving was a vehicle as defined by the Act because the Act makes quite clear what is, and is not, a vehicle. A private car being used for a private purpose does not meet the definition of a vehicle as provided for in the Act. I note that the definitions are in these terms: vehicle means a conveyance that is designed to be propelled or drawn by any means, whether or not capable of being so propelled or drawn, and includes ...but does not include ...; motor vehicle means a vehicle that is used or intended to be used on a highway and that is built to be propelled by a motor that forms part of the vehicle but does not include [exclusions not relevant for present purposes]
The police alleged that the appellant was the ‘driver’ when the Act defines ‘driver’ in these terms: Driver of a vehicle includes – (a) a two-up driver of the vehicle who is present in or near the vehicle; and (b) a person who is driving the vehicle as a driver under instruction or under an appropriate learner permit. The appellant contended that as neither of the sub-paragraphs applied to him, he was not defined as a ‘driver’ by the Act, there being no other definition of ‘driver’ within the Act that might capture his circumstances.
The appellant’s next point was, not being engaged in commerce but travelling for a private purpose, he had the right to travel down a road by whichever means he found fit so long as he did not cause any damage to other persons or property. There was, he submitted, no corpus delecti. Not having caused damage to any persons or property, no basis to issue a fine ever arose.
The appellant developed this argument from the informant’s admission in evidence that he was travelling in a car. In other words, he submitted that the informant did not suggest that the appellant was travelling in a vehicle or a motor vehicle. This, he submitted, was critical as the definitions in the Act are exhaustive and the term ‘vehicle’ is not defined to include a car. The appellant submitted that this consequence followed by application of the maxim expressio unius est exclusion alterius.
The appellant’s last oral point referred to grounds claiming that he was denied procedural fairness. Largely, the appellant complained that he was not permitted to question the police witnesses as he saw fit and was ‘cut off’ numerous times and that he was not permitted to fully develop his submissions. On analysis, it is plain that the magistrate did not cut the appellant off from developing his arguments, but did cut him off when he asked questions that could not generate a response that would be relevant to an issue and hence constitute admissible evidence. The magistrate did so quite correctly, and in particular disallowed questions in cross-examination of the informant about whether the appellant is a creature of statute, and about how legislation can apply to a living man. In the exchange, the magistrate told the appellant he could raise such matters in submissions, but they were not proper questions for the witness....
Turning first to the grounds relating to jurisdiction, the appellant’s attempt to distinguish himself from the ‘legal person’ who was charged with the offences was misconceived. There are 2461 instances of the use of the word ‘person’ in the Act, while the expression ‘legal person’ is not used. The natural and ordinary meaning of ‘person’ is a reference to an individual human being. The law carries the same meaning when using the expression ‘natural person’. There is a distinction, evident in the use of the expressions ‘natural’ and ‘legal’ persons, between artificial constructs of legal personality, where rights and duties are ascribed to an entity such as an incorporated company, that are referred to as ‘legal persons’ and natural persons, meaning individuals. All forms of person, natural and artificial, are recognised by the law as legal persons. In simple terms, all are subject to the rule of law.
The appellant contended that he was a private man travelling in a private car for a private purpose on a common way without disturbing the peace nor causing any damage to people or property. As such he was not a person of direct concern to society and ‘therefore remains private’, meaning not amenable to the powers of the police or the jurisdiction of the magistrate. Apparently, in this context, the legal person who is so amenable is the person identified by the driver’s licence and not the living private man that the informant conceded he dealt with. That living private man, so the argument goes, is a conceptually distinct persona from the legal person.
The law does not recognise an alternate, or paper, identity of the kind described by the appellant as represented by the name and persona identifiable from his driver’s licence as different from the identity of an individual human being. The identifying characteristics of a human being, such as name, are an integral part of the individual human being. The law recognises a living person as having status in law and any person is, in this sense, a legal person. Conceptually, there may be differences between the legal status of a person and that of an entity that is granted a like legal status, but what ever they might be they have no application on this appeal. In asserting that he is a ‘living man’, the appellant does no more than identify that he is a person, an individual. Every person, every individual, and every entity accorded status as a legal person is subject to the rule of law. There are no exceptions in Australian society.
It is plainly wrong to assert that a natural person is not subject to statute law, only to common law and the principles of equity. All persons are subject to all law whether its source be the Constitution, statute, or judge made law. No distinction can be made by using an analogue, such as ‘living man’ for ‘person’. There was no legal significance in the informant’s agreement with the appellant’s proposition in cross-examination that he was a ‘living man’. That conclusion was, and remained, blindingly obvious.
A like argument was also based on the notion that the living man is created by God and not by the State and the Australian Constitution does not grant legislative power to the Parliament of Australia to affect the rights of the living man. No support can be found for such notions by reference to style guides, as the appellant sought to do, to draw inferences from obscure facts. In this case, the appellant noted that his name was printed on his driver’s licence wholly in capital letters. Such irrelevant matters cannot impugn the jurisdiction of a magistrate under the Road Safety Act.
The appellant also advanced a like proposition that seems to have developed some momentum as a ‘sovereign citizen defence’, based in some way on notions of freedom to contract with others, as developed in a commercial context. The defendant contends that a living man is only answerable to those articles of law and legal proceedings to which he or she has consented. The contractual notion that the appellant alluded to has no role in public law in the manner suggested. Regulatory schemes legislated by Parliament do not require the consent of every individual for the law to apply to that individual. There is no contract and nor does the authority of the Parliament to pass such laws come from a sovereign, notwithstanding that the legislative power of the State is vested in the King and the Parliament of Victoria. The ‘consent’ of Victorians to statute law, in the sense in which the appellant used the expression, follows from the election of parliamentarians to make laws for the peace, order and good governance of the State and their subsequent exercise of that legislative power.
The appellant also expressed this notion of his personal exemption from the application of the Road Safety Act as he drove his car on public streets by asserting that he is a subject of the King of the United Kingdom and not a citizen of the King of Australia.
Like arguments, which perhaps find some development in obscure corners of the internet, were put to, and rejected by, Solomon J in Yap v Matic. ] I agree with his Honour’s statement that: Insofar as it asserts a distinction between the fictional 'PERSON' named as the defendant in these proceedings and Mr Matic himself, it is a distinction that is neither recognised by the law nor suggested by rational observation. Mr Matic is quite entitled to his belief in that distinction, but it is not one that can impact upon the court's jurisdiction . Mr Matic, as a person or as a 'living breathing man', capitalised or in lower case, is subject to the court's jurisdiction and required to comply with its orders.[
In this court, like arguments were rejected by Ginnane J in Monteith v Fitzgerald. In that case, as here, there was no challenge to the sufficiency of evidence to prove the charges, the challenge was to the jurisdiction of the magistrate. It was, in substance, put, as in this case, that the magistrate erred in determining that they had jurisdiction to hear and determine the charges. Busy judicial officers in the lower courts should not be troubled by such nonsense as is developed around these fatuous notions of ‘living man’ and ‘sovereign citizen’. ...
There were many other arguments raised that I need not deal with. For example, demonstrating a comprehensive misunderstanding of tax law, the appellant submitted that because Victoria Police had an ABN, it was a private corporation that would require a written contract with him to enforce any remedies. The appellant also argued that unidentified principles of common law and equity apply to the regulatory scheme constituted by the Act. The appellant told the learned magistrate that he had filed a notice of conditional appearance, but developed no submission about that.
