While sitting in court recently and waiting for things like directions hearings and instructions, in listening to cases that appear before the matters that I happen to be involved in, I have heard all kinds of tortured claims and conspiracies from utter wingnuts, loons, crazy bananas, and right steaming pillocks of people, try to invoke everything from being a 'Sovereign Citizen' or a 'Living Person', to claiming that Australia is a Corporation which is registered in the United States, to trying to invoke everyone's favourite magic piece of legislation - Magna Carta.
Granted that owing to various doctrines of reception, and pieces of acceptance legislation, the corpus of English and then British Law was adopted in Australia until about 1933 if we are pushing the absolute absurd limits of edge cases. However, people who think and from what I can tell who genuinely believe that by invoking Magna Carta, they are calling down the powers of Castle Greyskull or similar, are a whole new kind of deluded. I have no idea under what circumstances that these people think that a court of law, populated by judges and lawyers whose profession it is to have read law, are somehow going to bend like a twig in the wind to something that some other wingnut, loons, or crazy banana, who went to Magical Unicorn University has invented. As someone who works in an industry where being correct is important, and being correct at law is more important, then while I have not read law professionally, I still know that the first place to make a legal case is to read what the relevant law says. Magna Carta is rarely (actually never in Australia) the relevant law.
Manga Carta (the Big Charter) was not and is not some magical document upon which all of law hangs; and to assert such is ridiculous. What it was, was a list of demands made by about 25 Barons, to the King, made in a field in Runnymede; probably under the threat of death. Granted that these demands were eventually kind of sort accepted into law, but as far as any bearing on how legislation is passed today, or even what law is based upon, that is seven kinds of nonsense. In fact, only 4 clauses of Magna Carta remain in operation in the UK and the fact that any of them do, is remarkable but not relevant. The number of relevant operative clauses as far as it applies to Australia is nil.
Law in Westminster Parliaments is made either according to a rule set which tells parliaments how to make laws which is called a Constitution, or an unwritten rule set which tells parliaments how to make laws which is also called a Constitution. Where I live in New South Wales, the two relevant Constitutions which tells the State and Federal parliaments how to make laws, are the Constitution Act (1902) and the Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act (1901) [UK]. Regular readers of Horse will be reasonably familiar with me referring to various pieces of law including the Constitutions, a surprisingly large amount of the time for a blog.
Magna Carta is not even relevant when it comes to the British Constitution either. Although His Majesty's United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland does not have a single written constitution, the rule set which determines how the House of Commons and House of Lords make laws, how the various Courts assay and judge the facts according to those laws, and the positions of the King and the Army and the Cabinet relate to all of it, is still subject to various pieces of legislation which together form a series of planks which kind of act as the floorboards upon which the furniture of government stands.
Magna Carta is not useful for trying to make any kind of argument as to why you are driving in a car without paying motor registration fees or why you are driving in a car without being in possession of a valid driver's licence. Magna Carta is not useful for trying to make any kind of argument as to why after having being arrested while in the act of committing petty larceny, or fraud, or some kind of domestic violence against a person, you think that you are exempt from the law. Magna Carta is not useful for trying to make any kind of argument as to why you think that you have some right to possess illegal drugs, or firearms, or detain people illegally and against their will, or hold people in servitude or modern slavery. Magna Carta is not useful for trying to make any kind of argument as to why you think that you are exempt from paying workers properly. Magna Carta is not your magic 'get out of everything free' card. No case in Australia has ever been won on Sovereign Citizen grounds.
One of the common refrains that I have heard this year has been "I do not consent"; as if when being confronted with any kind of authority and/or enforcement of the law, these individuals have radicalised themselves into genuinely believing that they are somehow exempt from the law. What I find logically insane is that one on hand they claim to be exempt from the law, while at the same time relying upon the law (despite how irrelevant it is). This is as paradoxically idiotic as having a square circle or the very notion of a Sovereign Citizen itself.
I do not think that these people understand either what 'consent' is, or how this applies to the law. There is no right not to follow the law. There is no right not to be subject to the law. Having said that, while the idea that law is opt-out is nonsense, the idea that law is opt-in is also equally nonsense. I live in the State of New South Wales. I own a motor car. While there might be a notion of an implied right to freedom of movement, for me to drive a motor car still means that I am subject to the laws. I must purchase Compulsory Third Party injury insurance. Equally, if someone does not have a motor car, they do not need to purchase Compulsory Third Party injury insurance. Whether or not someone consents to the law is irrelevant. Simply the act of being in Australia and/or New South Wales, means that someone is subject to the law. That's it.
This is why I am consistently stunned that people actually think that they can make claims in court that they are not subject to the law. Do they honestly think that a judge, whose job it is to administer the law and make judgement, is going to be persuaded? Exactly how far outside of the realms of reality are these people playing at?
Specifically, the case on Tuesday this week, revolved around a chap who while driving disqualified, crashed into a parked car and the owner of the parked car quite rightly was suing him for damages. Even if you throw all legislation aside, common law would suggest that if you damage someone else's stuff, you should either repair, replace, or make good and get them new stuff. Our crazy banana tried to argue that he had a right to travel because Magna Carta gave him the right to travel 'freely' (which he defined as without payment) and that he did not consent to the laws which require him to have a valid driver's licence, and that as a 'living man' he did not consent to the court which he was now standing inside. He also refuse to pay for the damage he caused and didn't really offer any sensible reason why even at common law, he shouldn't be personally liable for his own actions.
Oh yeah. He lost.
Drongo.
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