Sovereign Citizens: Part Three - the Courts
Katrina Borthwick - 28 April 2025
In part one of this series I recapped the core beliefs of sovereign citizens, and where those beliefs come from, as well as some of the mischief being caused for Councils and the Police. In part two I looked at their interactions with Justices of the Peace. In this final part I explore what’s been happening in our Courts. The focus is mainly on NZ Courts, but I will also delve briefly into a couple of Canadian cases, one of which is drawn upon extensively in most NZ Court rulings around sovereign citizen behaviour.
For this part, I have read the text of the actual judgments and pulled the best bits out for your enjoyment (or frustration) here. So there’s a little bit here from me, and a lot from the judges. If you are interested in reading the cases, I have included the links throughout. The gem at the end is an absolute must read!
Threats and denominations
Richard Sivell has been charged with threatening to kill former Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, and also with sharing objectionable material - mainly the livestream footage of the Christchurch mosque shooting in 2019. He has been using sovereign citizen arguments in court. Sivell had previously appeared at Taupō District Court, where he told Judge Bergseng “I’d rather not be tried at all your honour” and “I’ve put in a motion to dismiss, right of subjugation.”
In a more recent hearing, Judge Hollister-Jones asked Sivell if he would enter pleas to the two charges, he said “No, I’m not going to plead”, “I require a sureties, bonds, denominations.” Judge Hollister-Jones cut Sivell off and simply said: “That’s deemed not guilty”. He hasn’t shown up to court a couple of times, and is yet to be sentenced.
Truck mumbo jumbo
Reported in 2022, Scott William Larsen, a truck driver, was stopped on Remutaka Hill Road, north of Wellington, and found to be a forbidden driver with an outstanding fines warrant. He refused to get out of the truck, but was eventually sprayed with tactical spray and arrested.
Larsen identifies himself as a “sovereign citizen” named “:scott-william”. In his first hearing in 2020, he showed his colours as a Sovcit with the usual name weirdness, accusing the judge of fraud and claiming he is part of the Ariki Nui o Tuhoe Government, and therefore not subject to the law. The judgment give more detail on this:
First, he submits he is not to be referred to as Mr Larsen. He submits that the “corporate name” of Larsen that the courts are using is a reference to an “artificial entity created through the use of artificial construct by all Crown representatives and forcefully against the will of the living man: scott-william.” Because he does not recognise himself as Mr Larsen, he says that the living scott-william was never invited to any Court, nor addressed by any Police and therefore the proceedings are null and void. [20]
….He submits that the Police and District Court “claims” are fraudulent, particularly as they have not followed due process. He says this makes their claims null and void. [25]
….Mr Larsen and his supporters make the claim that as Governors of the Ariki Nui o Tuhoe Government, they are not subject to the laws of New Zealand or Acts of the Crown. The submission is that as Governors, they carry the jurisdiction of the native constitution and government that was carried by their tupuna and recognised by the Anglican Church. [27]
That went as well as you might expect, and the case was not successful. So, he tried it again at an appeal in 2022.
The plaintiff contends that neither the police nor Justice system have any authority over him and categorises their actions in apprehending and prosecuting him as amounting to fraud, slavery, malfeasance of public office [sic] and deception. [7]
In response, the judge said:
The statement of claim is full of pseudo-legal mumbo jumbo that is characteristic of the “sovereign citizen” school of thought.
The Courts have consistently held that it is an abuse of process for a litigant to attempt to employ sovereign citizen concepts in seeking to avoid or defeat any State, regulatory, contract, family or other obligations recognised by law.
Consistently with the other cases where the sovereign citizen theory has been invoked to attempt to escape the jurisdiction of the Court, I hold that these proceedings are plainly an abuse of the process of the Court, and strike them out. [8-11]
These same points have been made by other judges repeatedly, as can be seen in the following cases, where ‘mumbo jumbo’ has been substituted for other words that exhibit varying levels of frustration and restraint.
The Woolshed, Francis Bacon and Shakespeare
In 2023 there was a case involving a woolshed in Thames which was converted into a house without consent. Richard Beresford cited the Bible, Francis Bacon and Shakespeare in an attempt to have himself and his five children declared dead. He applied to the court to have the person described in his birth certificate declared as deceased, and asked for the claim to be heard in a court of “Chancery”, which does not exist. The quotes from the judgment explain this a bit more:
The part of the complainant’s claim that seeks to change his birth status from “living” to “deceased” appears to me to seek that this Court engage in legitimising that theory, essentially to validate the complainant’s position that the law only applies to fictional legal personalities, rather than natural persons. It appears that the complainant believes that: [13]
“Because every person has inalienable, natural rights, governments must assert their authority over natural or ‘flesh and blood’ persons to make them subjects. Governments do that, for example, when a birth certificate, bank account, driver’s licence, or government identity is issued. Those actions create an ‘artificial’ person – a legal person, personality, corporation, or ‘strawman’ – over whom the government and its agencies, which are parallel corporate forms, have jurisdiction. The crucial aspect is that the natural or living man or woman is freed from government subjection when they assert their status, claim it, and prove it.”
The complainant also records that he will “give up and forsake everything the commercial world has offered and given to [him]” [16]
The judge’s response is telling:
The complainant provided an affidavit in support of his claim, which was not sworn or witnessed. The content of that document largely contains quotes from various sources, including but not limited to the Bible, Shakespeare, Francis Bacon, Webster’s Dictionary, Black’s Law Dictionary, the Oxford Dictionary, and Butterworths New Zealand Law Dictionary…. [17]
In my view, this claim should be struck out. I consider that right thinking people would regard this Court as exercising very poor control of its processes for it to allow the complainant’s document to be treated as a proper document….. [21]
Tax and deep sea fishing
In Tamihere v CIR (2017), Robin Tamihere, an undischarged bankrupt, brought proceedings in District Court seeking judgment against the Commissioner of the IRD. Those applications were struck out.
Tamihere applied for judicial review, $15K damages for a breach of the Bill of Rights Act, a declaration, and seven other remedies. The Commissioner applied for this further claim to be struck out, and the following comments are notable in the judgement:
This proceeding was filed by the applicant as “Tamihere: Robin Noema Hughes”, who wishes to be known as “Marshal Robin”, “the Living Man”. He styles himself as a Diplomatic Federal Marshal to the independent Polynesian Kingdom of Atooi and as unemployed of Tuakau.
The documents the applicant has filed are vexatious, unintelligible, an abuse of the court process. [4(b)]
The meaning of the applicant’s oral and written submissions are difficult to decipher. In essence, I understand he submits the application is fraudulent, I have no jurisdiction to hear this matter and I would be committing fraud, bias, and acting in collusion with the Commissioner if I grant the application. He submits the strike-out documents have been filed by fictitious plaintiffs, are ultra vires and an abuse of the court’s process that breaches natural justice. He says the Commissioner’s application is defective because it does not once refer to him by what he says is his proper name. [5]
Although facts pleaded are ordinarily assumed to be true in a strike-out application, that does not extend to allegations which are “self-evidently speculative or false” or plainly unsupportable and without foundation. As I said in Sellman v Slater, the courts will not provide a boat for a deep-sea fishing expedition without bait. [9]
I suggest to the applicant that he would benefit from consulting a lawyer if contemplating further legal proceedings. [16]
Unsurprisingly Judge Palmer rejected Tamihere’s pseudo-legal arguments, dismissed Tamihere’s case, and awarded costs against him.
Vaccination and an education
In Ricks v Te Pukenga (2022), Tahi Ricks was unable to undertake his final year of study towards a Bachelor of Architecture due to the Ara Institute of Canterbury’s COVID-19 vaccination policy. Mr Ricks was not vaccinated, nor did he have an exemption.
On 17 March 2022, Mr Ricks sent Ara a document headed “Affidavit of Truth”. According to Mr Ricks:
This document required Ara to dispute “claims, statements, assertions, facts contained herein” which were said to represent Mr Ricks’ “truth”. There followed 82 matters for Ara to respond to and it was stated that if Ara did not dispute any of the claims that were made within 14 days it would result in an automatic default judgment against Ara and it would be liable to Mr Ricks’ fee schedule. The fee schedule contained amounts payable by Ara totalling more than $10 million said to relate to losses Mr Ricks suffered, including $3 million for harm to his education and $7 million for harm to his future.” [20]
On 4 April 2023 he sent another document to Ara:
…. a document headed “Notice of Recognition and Thanks”, noting that Ara had failed to rebut the Affidavit of Truth which “now stands as Truth in Law and a Judgement in Commerce, which no-one can overturn”. He stated that “ultimately, this means you — Darren Mitchell/Ara are now liable to the fee schedule which is remedy for the damages caused to me”. He advised that Ara had a further 10 working days to arrange a meeting with him if it would like to discuss a settlement figure or arrange payment options, otherwise he would pursue collection of the debt for the full amount. [21]
So, he was demanding over $10 million be paid to him because Ara hadn’t responded to his previous correspondence, and therefore by not responding had tacitly agreed to pay it.
His arguments around non-response being acceptance were deemed not valid, and his letters backfired in a big way. The judge concluded that no enforceable contract of re-enrolment was concluded, which was evidenced by Mr Ricks own statement of claim:
….. He pleads that he sent a “Notice of Conditional Acceptance” in response to the 4 February email and that he only “conditionally accepted and agreed” to the Policy under duress. Further, if there was any doubt about his position, he stated it quite clearly when he returned Ara’s letter of 16 February with the words “No consent no contract”. [48]
So yeah, no contract there. The various parts of his case were dismissed or struck out.
The incomprehensible dog
In James v District Court at Whanganui (2022), James Jones argued against having to register his dog. This was because his dog was a legal person, and a “Person does not have to Register with a Local Authority or wear a collar or be restrained by a leash” [9].
Additionally, James argued that firstly he is a ‘sovereign person’ beyond the jurisdiction of the Court, and secondly that the Court requires consent for legitimacy, and he has not given his consent to be bound by its processes [13]. The judgment gives a bit more detail on this:
In his statement of claim the applicant pleaded that the Court “addressed the Artificial Person James Jones, the Deceased Estate JAMES JONES and the Vessel Mr James Jones… [15]
While the applicant said he did not wish me to consider this issue, I note that the Courts have observed in similar proceedings that “incomprehensible statements about birth right and being a natural person not susceptible to the laws of this country are regularly and properly rejected by the Courts”. Such assertions are “legally unsound” [16]
On 27 June 2020, James published a “Public – Proclamation” in the local Whanganui newspaper which said:
PUBLIC – PROCLAMATION
Take Notice all affected and Interested Parties.
I James, a Sovereign Man, have created a new Person.
A Vizsla Dog, date of Birth 1 December 2019 being the Private Property of James and is known as and answers to Connor, is by this Public Proclamation declared a Person and subject to all the privileges and protection of a Person.
The name of the new Person is Connor James.
This Proclamation is the Common Law Right of James.
An Estoppel is hereby created against any affected or interested Party who does not respond within Ten [10] Days from the first appearance of this Public Proclamation to the electronic address jim@Jamessonofjames.com and cannot subsequently claim Colour of Right or Protection of Law.” [21]
His case was dismissed and costs were awarded against him. The dog registration would have cost him $50. Also, I do wonder if that email address still works….
The ‘go away’ order
In an interesting case, Meenken v The Family Court at Masterton (2017), Diederik Meenken, an undischarged bankrupt, sought to use the Family Court to “transfer his “estate” (by which he means his legal personality) to the Crown, in order to avoid his legal obligations.”
He had been attempting to do this for the previous seven years, since 2010, and was first made bankrupt in 2012, after trying to avoid paying tax in 2003 and 2004. He was again made bankrupt in 2016. He was deemed ‘competent’, and so there were no grounds for the state to take over his assets. And anyway, due to his bankruptcies, his property rights were vested with an official assignee, who was wholly against him taking all of this to court. Meenken had previously filed five applications in the Family Court, and two in the High Court, all of which have been unsuccessful. The judge had this to say:
The Court submits this type of argument is an abusive tactic adopted by litigants seeking to avoid legal obligations and it is an abuse of process for Mr Meenken to continue to litigate this issue. [17]
The claim was struck out, and Meehken was banned from “commencing or continuing a proceeding, which engages the “double/split person” concept or seeks to transfer Mr Meenken’s “estate” to the Crown for three years.” [55]
Get out of jail free
There are quite a few cases of people trying to get out of prison via habeas corpus applications using Sovcit arguments. Habeas corpus is a legal writ used to bring a prisoner before a court to determine if their detention is lawful. It’s a safeguard against unlawful detention, and ensures that no one can be imprisoned without due process. These kinds of applications ask the court to rule that the person’s imprisonment is illegal, and to order the release of the prisoner.
In the 2022 Court of Appeal case of Warahi v Chief Executive of the Department of Corrections, the court made note of the prisoner’s affidavit which had been entitled an “affidavit of identity”. The affidavit stated:
That My Christian name is Jay Maui: with the initial letters capitalised as required by the Rules of English Grammar for the writing of names of sovereign soul flesh and blood people. My patronymic or family name of Wallace with the initial letters capitalised.
That the name JAY MAUI WALLACE or any other drivitation [sic] of that name is a dead fictitious foreign situs trust or quasi corporation/legal entity not the sovereign soul flesh and blood Man that I am.
That I am a free will flesh and blood Suri Juris sovereign man and as such I am private, non resident, non domestic, non person, non citizen, non individual and not subject to any real or imaginary statutory acts, rules, regulations or quasi laws.
That I am who I say that I am NOT who the overt or covert agents of the State say that I am.
That I do not knowingly, willingly, intentionally, or voluntarily surrender my sovereign inalienable rights according to the law of nature.
That the state has no legal jurisdiction or sovereign authority justified in origin to hear this matter.
That it is the responsibility of the complainant to bring the correct parties before the courts.
The judge had this to say about that:
This demonstrates the prisoner’s belief in their dual persona, their use of legal terms that are irrelevant to the criminal law jurisdiction or simply nonsensical, the assertion that they can only be held subject to the law or to liability if they have personally agreed and challenges the jurisdiction of the State. [9]
The result:
The courts have the power to deal with all actions that may amount to criminal offences in this country. No person within New Zealand is able to dissociate themselves from their “legal persona” so as to remove themselves from the jurisdiction of the courts. The arguments advanced by Maui are untenable and without legal foundation. [11]
Case dismissed.
The other cases I saw read very similarly with variations of the same arguments made. For example, in Wilson v The Chief Executive of the Department of Corrections (2021), Saaan Wilson argued that he should be let out of prison because he “is a sovereign “living man” beyond the jurisdiction of the New Zealand courts.” All the judge had to say on that was “Such an assertion is legally unsound” [6], and his application was refused.
In Martin v Chief Executive of the Department of Corrections (2016), Robin Martin claimed he should be released from prison where he was being held for burglary as he was not subject to New Zealand’s laws. He described himself as the representative of an “infant deceased estate”, and filed a copy of his birth certificate along with his application. Martin described himself as a “freeman of the land”, not subject to any act of Parliament. The judge dismissed Mr Martin’s application stating that:
There is absolutely no merit in this application and it represents a gross abuse of the Court’s procedure … Incomprehensible statements about birthright and being a natural person not susceptible to the laws of this country are regularly and properly rejected by the Courts … [as quoted in the UNSW Law Journal]
A similar previous case, Wallace v the Chief Executive of the Department of Corrections (2016), this time on the basis of Māori sovereignty, had the same result. Another one was heard in Simon v Chief Executive of the Department of Corrections (2022), where Gregory Simon “argued that there is a distinction between himself, as a “natural person” and the “legal person/corpus body” named in the warrant.[4]” there are numerous other examples cited in that case if you want to have a look, but they do get a bit samey.
The oft quoted Canadian judgment
Meads v Meads 2012, from the Court of Queen’s Bench of Alberta, Canada, is the seminal work on sovereign citizenship quoted by Judges throughout the Commonwealth. The judgment runs for 159 pages, plus appendices. It contains 736 numbered points, and is a thorough analysis of sovcit pseudolaw by Associate Chief Justice J.D. Rooke.
The case itself is around divorce matters, and the husband used Organised Pseudolegal Commercial Argument (OPCA) tactics to claim immunity from court authority. These are Sovcit arguments by another name. The claim included a document that purports that anyone who uses the name ‘Dennis Larry Meads’ (or variations of that) owes ‘Dennis-Larry: Meads’ $100 million per use.
The Court rejected the arguments, and granted the wife’s application for case management. The Chief Justice made the following comments:
OPCA strategies as brought before this Court have proven disruptive, inflict unnecessary expenses on other parties, and are ultimately harmful to the persons who appear in court and attempt to invoke these vexatious strategies. Because of the nonsense they argue…” [71]
Beyond that, these are little more than scams that abuse legal processes. …. The persons who advance these schemes, and particularly those who market and sell these concepts as commercial products, are parasites that must be stopped. [72]
A critical first point is an appreciation that the concepts discussed in these Reasons are frequently a commercial product, designed, promoted, and sold by a community of individuals, whom I refer to as “gurus”. Gurus claim that their techniques provide easy rewards – one does not have to pay tax, child and spousal support payments, or pay attention to traffic laws. There are allegedly secret but accessible bank accounts that contain nearly unlimited funds, if you know the trick to unlock their gates. You can transform a bill into a cheque with a stamp and some coloured writing. You are only subject to criminal sanction if you agree to be subject to criminal sanction. You can make yourself independent of any state obligation if you so desire, and unilaterally force and enforce demands on other persons, institutions, and the state……and all these “secrets” can be yours, for small payment to the guru. [73-74]
These claims are, of course, pseudolegal nonsense….. [75]
The bluntly idiotic substance of Mr. Mead’s argument explains the unnecessarily complicated manner in which it was presented. OPCA arguments are never sold to their customers as simple ideas, but instead are byzantine schemes which more closely resemble the plot of a dark fantasy novel than anything else. Latin maxims and powerful sounding language are often used. Documents are often ornamented with many strange marking and seals. Litigants engage in peculiar, rituallike in court conduct…. Mediaeval alchemy is a helpful analogue….. [77-78]
Oh yes and:
“…Mr. Meads has no basis in law to demand $100 million per use of his name.” [727]
So the Chief Justice thinks sovereign citizen ‘gurus’ are scammers. Interesting angle there.
The less-quoted Canadian judgment
In another Canadian case, R. v Duncan (2013), Justice James O’Donnell amusingly takes a narrative approach to an oral judgment. I cannot do it full justice here, so jump in the link if you want to read the full story, starting with:
You should get out of town”, the man said. [1]
And so began the journey that resulted in my path intersecting with Matthew Duncan’s path. And thence to these reasons, with a slight detour through territory that might have confused Lewis Carroll. [2]
At heart, Mr. Duncan’s case was unremarkable. A minor alleged Highway Traffic Act offence led to a police-citizen interaction in the parking lot of Mr. Duncan’s apartment building in the wee hours of the morning. A request that Mr. Duncan produce his licence led to an alleged refusal, which led to an attempt to arrest him, which led to a struggle, which was captured on a very poor quality video taken on a mobile phone, at the end of which Mr. Duncan found himself being placed under arrest for allegedly assaulting a police officer. Nothing unusual in all that. The bread and butter of provincial court…. Of course, I hadn’t counted on the freemen on the land. [5-6]
…Unfortunately, he was a rather pleasant young man whose mind was filled with what my late father would have called “notions”….. It has been said that, given enough time, ten thousand monkeys with typewriters would probably eventually replicate the collected works of William Shakespeare. Sadly, when human beings are let loose with computers and internet access, their work product does not necessarily compare favourably to the aforementioned monkeys with typewriters. [7-8]
…This hodgepodge of irrelevancies relied upon by Mr. Duncan was one of the misbegotten fruits of the internet. Finding it was a waste of Mr. Duncan’s time; printing it was a waste of trees and my reading it was a waste of my time and public money. …[9]
….Mr. Duncan’s adopted argument and his volume of internet-derived gibberish made me wonder if, for some reason, the gods had me in their cross-hairs. [20]
….the red binder he offered to the officers and the “affidavit of truth” he offered to me in court were regrettable descents into foolishness and Mr. Duncan would be well-advised to be more discriminating on what parts of the internet he models himself upon in the future. [31]
I absolutely have to know more about this Judge! Sadly, I couldn’t find much else, but google’s AI tells me he is known for his engaging and sometimes unconventional writing style in his judgments, particularly this one. If you know of more, please email us.