Pseudolaw
Pseudolaw consists of statements, beliefs, or practices that are claimed to be based on accepted law or legal doctrine, but which deviate significantly from most conventional understandings of law and jurisprudence, or which originate from non-existent statutes or legal principles the advocate or adherent incorrectly believes exist. Pseudolaw often purports to base itself on "common law", though it has no relation to contemporary or historical examples of common law. Canadian legal scholar Donald J. Netolitzky defined pseudolaw as "a collection of legal-sounding but false rules that purport to be law", a definition that distinguishes pseudolaw from arguments  that fail to conform to existing laws such as novel arguments or an ignorance of precedent in case law. The features are distinct and conserved. The term Organized Pseudolegal Commercial Arguments (OPCA) was coined in a 2012 Canadian court decision to reference pseudolegal tactics and arguments, and has since been used by lawyers and legal scholars in Commonwealth countries. Pseudolegal arguments are sometimes referred to as "legalistic gibberish". The more extreme examples of pseudolegal tactics have been classified as paper terrorism. Litigants who use pseudolaw generally dispense with real legal counsel. They frequently rely on techniques and arguments promoted and  sold – sometimes as "kits" – by amateur legal theorists, who are commonly called "gurus". Pseudolegal theories and schemes are disseminated and advertised through websites, isolated documents, short or voluminous texts, seminars, radio broadcasts, instructional DVDs and, above all, YouTube videos. Pseudolaw gurus may occasionally appear in court, though in most cases their followers are left to represent themselves. People offering false and unlicensed legal services are likely to be charlatans or scammers. Pseudolaw typically appeals to people seeking a remedy for their financial or legal problems, or against perceived government excesses and intrusions. It has been used to challenge certain laws , taxes and sentences, escape debt, avoid foreclosure, as part of financial schemes, but also to deny the jurisdiction of courts or even the legitimacy of governments. It is a common tactic of tax protesters and conspiracy theorists, as well as some types of vexatious litigants. Pseudolegal tactics may defy rationality and resemble magic rituals more than actual law. The behaviour of litigants who use such methods is sometimes so unorthodox it resembles mental illness. Arguments derived from pseudolaw have never been accepted in court and can be harmful to the people using them. History. The history of pseudolaw is poorly  documented, including by its own adherents. Pseudolaw seems to have existed in the United States since the 1950s, and possibly much earlier. Pseudolegal theories challenging the legitimacy of government or taxes were observed in Canada as early as the 1930s. The development of pseudolaw was fostered in the United States by the farm crisis of the late 20th century: from the 1980s, former North Dakota farmer Roger Elvick advocated anti-tax and anti-government schemes in what became known as the redemption movement. The advent of the Internet later facilitated the spreading of pseudolegal ideas and concepts, which matured around  1999–2000 in the United States where they were at that point hosted by the sovereign citizen movement. During the same period, US-influenced pseudolaw was introduced into Canada, initially through the "Detaxer" movement led by Eldon Warman, who reframed Elvick's theories and US sovereign citizen ideology to better suit a Commonwealth context. Detaxer ideology was further adapted by the freeman on the land movement, which became more prevalent than sovereign citizens in Commonwealth countries. In the United States and Canada, pseudolaw has been used by Indigenous groups as well as by those claiming inauthentic indigenous identities, and by other  ethnic groupings such as the African-American "Moorish" sovereign citizens. Since the late 2000s, the sovereign citizen movement has enjoyed a significant resurgence, due to the 2007-2008 financial crisis. Outside the United States and Canada, pseudolaw has appeared in various English-speaking countries, including the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, the Republic of Ireland and South Africa. Freeman on the land ideology reached the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland in the late 2000s. Irish and British "gurus" have imported the core ideas of North American pseudolaw, while also using Ireland and UK-specific concepts and references. In  Ireland, it notably developed after the burst of a real-estate bubble in the late 2000s, which drastically reduced property values, causing financial stresses and foreclosures and leading people to seek solutions to their financial woes. One striking feature of Irish pseudolaw is the appearance of a political party, Direct Democracy Ireland, created by Ben Gilroy, a promoter of anti-foreclosure concepts and conspiracy theories. As in the Republic of Ireland, pseudolaw is mostly used in the UK for economical reasons, by people wishing to avoid taxes or to escape government regulations. Pseudolaw is firmly present in Australia and New  Zealand; Australia is notable for having developed its own version of pseudolaw as early as the 1980s, with local "gurus" devising Australia-specific schemes to defeat the government. Some Australians, however, litigate as freemen on the land. Australian freemen have tried to recruit Indigenous Australians. Unlike in Australia, New Zealand litigants have not developed theories specific to their country and show influence from various foreign sources. Many New Zealand pseudolaw litigants, however, are Maori who base their claims on their ethnic status. In South Africa, author Michael Tellinger promoted schemes based on fiscal misconceptions and, purportedly, on Ubuntu philosophy; he  was also unsuccessfully involved in politics by creating the Ubuntu Party. Other South African gurus show American, Canadian or British influences. Pseudolaw has also been exported outside the English-speaking world, in countries such as Germany and Austria where it has been adapted to culturally distinct populations. While it has thrived in some countries, it has gone quickly extinct in others such as Norway. Attempts in Belgium and the Netherlands were apparently unsuccessful, probably due to their not having developed appropriate schemes for local civil law jurisdictions. American pseudolaw "gurus" have been promoting their strategies in other countries, sometimes making  little or no effort to adapt their material to local contexts. This has resulted in peculiar incidents, such as Canadian litigants filing documents which alluded to U.S. legislations. Some groups of sovereign citizens have created "common law courts" to handle matters regarding movement members, or to issue "judgements" devoid of legal authority. Pseudolaw has been used by people wishing to ignore certain rules or to avoid inconveniences such as paying license fees and traffic tickets, but also as a means to commit serious offenses such as tax evasion or as part of fraudulent schemes like mortgage elimination. During the COVID-19  pandemic, pseudolegal arguments have been used by anti-mask and anti-vaccine activists in several countries. Business owners and individuals have also tried to escape coronavirus restrictions by citing irrelevant documents such as obsolete clauses in the Magna Carta. Theories. Common beliefs. One common pseudolegal belief is that individuals possess partial or full sovereignty independent from the government of the country in which they live, and that no laws, or only certain laws, apply to the believer. Groups espousing such beliefs include the freemen on the land and the sovereign citizen movements, whose ideologies are based on idiosyncratic interpretations of  common law. Some, such as the "Reichsbürgerbewegung" ("Reich Citizens' Movement") groups in Germany, believe that their state itself is illegitimate. The "common law" on which pseudolegal theories are purportedly based rests heavily on a distorted image of traditional English law, mixing authentic but misinterpreted legal maxims with obsolete, typically medieval, documents such as the Magna carta, as well as actual fabrications. Other irrelevant sources often cited in pseudolaw include the Uniform Commercial Code, the Articles of Confederation, or the Bible. American pseudolegal theorists tend to reinterpret the Constitution of the United States through a selective reading of legal dictionaries, notably  an obsolete version of Black's Law Dictionary. Irish pseudolaw gurus have referenced Brehon law rather than English law as the ancient and original source of law in Ireland. Also under the umbrella of pseudolegal arguments are conspiracy theorists who believe there is a secret parallel legal system that one can access through specific means, like using a secret phrase, certain forms of unconventional legalese (one extreme example being the constructed language created by American "guru" David Wynn Miller, a purported "correct" language which is actually incomprehensible to courts as well as to most people), latin maxims, grandiose language, or  irregular formalities such as stamps placed on specific documents or thumbprints in red ink. One theory, espoused by American sovereign citizens, is that the United States' legal system was at some point secretly replaced with admiralty law (understood as a form of commercial law) as part of a broader conspiracy which replaced the legitimate American government with a business corporation. This leads sovereign citizens to consider that U.S. judges and lawyers are actually agents of a foreign power and that American courts, being admiralty courts, have no jurisdiction over people. The origin of that particular theory is unclear, though it  may stem from the fact that some nautical-sounding terms such as "dock" or "birth (homophone with "berth") - certificate" are commonly used by English-language judiciaries. Donald J. Netolitzky has identified six core concepts in what he calls the "Pseudolaw Memeplex": Other theories. People involved in pseudolaw may use unlikely arguments, and be adherents of various other conspiracy theories and sometimes fantastical beliefs. Defendants may, for example, attempt to deny the court's jurisdiction over them by claiming that they are neither citizens nor residents of the country where the trial take place, regardless of their birthright and actual residence  status. In 2010, Canadian serial litigant and "Detaxer" guru David Kevin Lindsay tested a variation of the strawman theory by arguing that he should not be paying taxes because, since 1996, he was no longer a "person" as defined by the Income Tax Act but rather "a full liability free will flesh and blood living man". The court rejected his claims. American sovereign citizen and redemption guru Winston Shrout, who advocated tax resistance for twenty years and was ultimately imprisoned, mixed his pseudolegal and pseudoeconomic theories with claims that he was an "Earth delegate to the interdimensional Galactic Round Table  and a sixth-dimensional interplanetary diplomat" and that he once disrupted international transactions by relocating the prime meridian with the assistance of the Queen of the Fairies. Christopher Hallett, from Florida, and his associate Kirk Pendegrass, from Idaho, operated a company called E-Clause which offered amateur legal services based on sovereign citizen ideology; they advertised their activities through a social media community which included QAnon supporters and flat earthers. E-Clause focused on child custody cases and was notably aimed to mothers whose children had been removed from their care; it also associated with the "Pentagon Pedophile Task Force , a QAnon-affiliated group of conspiracy theorists. Hallett claimed that then-president Donald Trump had authorized him to create a separate legal system; in January 2020, a federal judge commented, upon dismissing one of Hallett's lawsuits, The Court declines to entertain Plaintiff's fantasy that he is acting at the behest of the President". In November 2020, Hallett was murdered by one of his followers and clients, Neely Petrie-Blanchard, a QAnon adherent who had relied on him to win back custody of her children but had come to believe that he conspired against her. Lawyer Colin McRoberts commented  in 2016, after attending pseudolegal seminars held by conspiracy theorists including Winston Shrout: Responses from authorities. Followers of pseudolaw can cause problems for courts and government administrators by filing unusual, numerous and voluminous applications that are difficult to process, or even to understand. On occasion, authorities may decide to not pursue a matter in front of pseudolegal tactics, due to lack of time, interest or resources: in 2010, a prosecutor in Pinellas County, Florida, confronted with paper terrorism from a sovereign citizen who refused to pay a $20 dog licence, opted to drop the case. However, while such methods  may occasionally obtain similar results, or at least delay legal proceedings by encumbering courts, they are ultimately never successful in front of a judge and a jury. Pseudolegal tactics and arguments are commonly found frivolous and vexatious and there is no recorded instance of them being upheld in a court of law. People using them may be found guilty of contempt of court or, in the case of "gurus", unauthorized practice of law. Depending on the nature of their actions, self-proclaimed "common law" judges have been ignored, or prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. In 2018, a  Colorado court ruled that the network of "common law courts" led by sovereign citizen Bruce Doucette was a racketeering enterprise akin to organized crime and sentenced Doucette to 38 years in prison. In 2012, the Court of Queen's Bench of Alberta issued a decision pertaining to a contentious divorce case in which the husband called himself a freeman on the land and used pseudolegal arguments such as the strawman theory; Associate Chief Justice John D. Rooke compiled a decade of Canadian jurisprudence and American academic research about pseudolaw, covering freeman on the land, redemption and sovereign citizen arguments, and  coining the label Organized Pseudolegal Commercial Arguments (OPCA) as an umbrella term for such tactics. Besides refuting in detail various pseudolegal arguments, Rooke specifically called out the role of the "gurus" who make money by promoting tactics which are not only ineffectual, but ultimately harmful to the people who use them: "Meads v. Meads" has since been used as case law and as a resource against pseudolegal arguments by courts in Canada and in other Commonwealth countries.