Freeman on the land movement

There is some cross-over between the two groups which call themselves freemen and sovereign citizens (and some others). The freeman on the land movement comes from the encounter of the Canadian and American traditions of pseudolaw theories. Canada developed its own tradition of pseudolaw and tax protesters, which merged over time with ideas from the American sovereign citizen movement. Sovereign citizen ideas garnered more support during the American farm crisis of the late 1970s and 1980s and a financial crisis in both the US and Canada in the same period. With the advent of the Internet and continuing during the 21st century, people throughout the English-speaking world who share the core beliefs of these movements (which may be loosely defined as "see[ing] the state as a corporation with no authority over free citizens") have been able to connect and share their beliefs. In 1999, arguments based on the constitutional division of powers, earlier used by Hart and Gauvreau, were further developed by Robert A. Marquis in his book Fraud, Deception, Manipulation, though Marquis failed to mention that these arguments had already been rejected by Canadian courts. On denying Warman's appeal, the British Columbia Court of Appeal noted that his arguments were based on a rejection of state and judicial authority. In 2016, he was sentenced to five and a half years in prison and ordered to pay C$259,482 in fines for tax evasion and for having counselled others to commit fraud. The Detaxer movement went through a decline after 2008, due to the repeated failure of its concepts in courts. As of 2016, the last "guru" actively teaching Detaxer theories is David Kevin Lindsay, Linsday's own failure in court eroded his status as a pseudolaw guru. Origin of freeman on the land movement (from 2000) The freeman on the land movement in Canada originated with one single key "guru", Robert Arthur Menard. Menard entered pseudolaw as a student of Detaxer theories, which he later promoted on the Internet through online forums such as "Cannabis culture", videos and freely distributed ebooks. The notable difference between the Detaxer and freemen on the land populations is that the latter shows a politically leftist orientation, open to environmentalism, anti-globalization concepts and marijuana advocacy. Freeman on the land ideology developed in Canada mostly as a criminal culture: most of its courtroom applications were aimed to legitimise illegal activities. Like their Canadian "Detaxer" predecessors and American sovereign citizens, Canadian freemen on the land put a strain on public resources, notably using paper terrorism by filing numerous documents written in incoherent language, clogging the court system. In 2008, Menard was prohibited from appearing in court as a counsel and giving legal advice in British Columbia. In 2012, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service reported that freemen on the land were causing a "major policing problem". Adherents had violent encounters with police forces and the movement attempted to create its own "corps of peace officers". In 2013, Canadian media reported the case of a Calgary woman whose tenant, a freeman on the land, had claimed her property as his own and declared it an "embassy". In 2015, a police officer was murdered in Edmonton by a man who adhered to freeman on the land ideology. Menard also launched a financial scheme, the Association of Canadian Consumer Purchasers (ACCP), through which people could purportedly receive the "Menard Card", a $2,500.00 debit card, in return for a $250.00 per month subscription. Around 2010, Menard's leadership was challenged by another "guru", Dean Clifford, who advocated a more confrontational approach against government and court authorities. In 2015, he was sentenced to three years in prison for numerous drug and weapons offenses. After his release, he endeavored to restore his status in the pseudolaw community However, incidents involving self-described freemen of the land are still reported in Canada. United Kingdom Freeman on the land ideology reached the United Kingdom in the late 2000s. Use of pseudolaw in the UK is difficult to evaluate, but there is clear evidence of an active community using concepts mostly derived from Canadian freeman on the land sources. Unlike Canadian freemen who primarily use pseudolaw to justify illegal activity, UK litigants mostly focus on economic issues, such as avoiding Council Tax, motor vehicle registration and insurance, television licence fees, mortgages, and other debts. which promised immunity to foreclosure to its subscribers and advocated "strawman" concepts. Local freeman on the land activists have made particular efforts to appeal to Indigenous Australians. New Zealand Unlike Australia, New Zealand has not developed local concepts, even though many New Zealander pseudolaw litigants are Maori who base their claims on their ethnic status. Pseudolegal documents in New Zealand have shown influence from multiple foreign sources, including Canadian freemen on the land ideology. == Groupings ==

A number of anti-state movements with similar tactics but different ideologies may receive the label "freeman on the land". Canada Robert Arthur Menard, the originator of the movement, was called the "Director of Freemen on the Land", though he likened the movement to "a voluntary relay race" and said that it was "way too unorganized to have a hierarchical structure". and the Original Sovereign Confederation. OSTF Founder Mark McMurtrie, an Aboriginal Australian man, has produced YouTube videos speaking about "common law", which incorporate Freemen beliefs. Appealing to other Aboriginal people by partly identifying with the land rights movement, McMurtrie played on their feelings of alienation and lack of trust in the systems which had not served Indigenous people well.) has a Facebook presence, and there are other websites promulgating Freemen/Sovereign Citizen ideas. United Kingdom In the United Kingdom, freeman on the land ideology has influenced The People's United Community (TPUC), a group created in 2007 to oppose taxation, European integration and the Conservative government. TPUC espoused one UK-specific concept of defective state authority, called "lawful rebellion", namely that a freeman could write to the Queen and invoke Clause 61 of the Magna Carta to negate Royal (and, by extension, government) authority. However, Clause 61 empowers 25 Barons to restrict the monarch, and does not concern the general public nor mention "lawful rebellion". During the early 2010s, freeman ideas also spilled into the UK Occupy movement. In 2018, The White Pendragons, a group of freemen on the land whose ideology combined pseudolaw with anti-government, anti-immigration and anti-Islam views, tried to "arrest" London Mayor Sadiq Khan. Ireland In Ireland, the Tir na Saor website, which operated from 2009 to 2016, was a major hub for the Irish pseudolaw community and showed clear Canadian freeman influences. The most unusual development of freeman ideology in Ireland was the creation of a political party, Direct Democracy Ireland, co-founded in 2010 by anti-foreclosure activist and serial litigant Ben Gilroy. Direct Democracy Ireland did poorly at elections and the Irish freeman on the land movement eventually went into decline. In 2024, Direct Democracy Ireland was rebranded as Liberty Republic and ran six candidates in the 2024 Irish general election. None of the candidates were elected. ==Beliefs==

Freemen on the land, like sovereign citizens, share the core beliefs commonly seen in pseudolaw. Many freemen beliefs are based on idiosyncratic interpretations of admiralty or maritime law, which the freemen claim govern the commercial world. These beliefs stem from fringe interpretations of various nautical-sounding terms, such as ownership, citizenship, dock, or birth (berth) certificate. Freemen refer to the court as a ship and the court's occupants as passengers, and may claim that those leaving are "men overboard". The signed document, often notarised, is sent to the King and possibly other authorities such as the Prime Minister and police chiefs. It usually begins with the words "Whereas it is my understanding" and goes on to state the freemen's understanding of the law and their lack of consent to it. In a 2004 video titled "Bursting Bubbles of Government Deception", Menard claimed that one does not have to follow the law if he has "constructively den[ied] consent to be governed" via contract with the government. Freemen believe that since they exist in a common law jurisdiction where equality is paramount and mandatory, the people in the government and courts are not above the law, and that government and court personnel therefore must obtain the consent of the governed. Freemen believe that government employees who do not obtain consent of the governed have abandoned the rule of law. They believe this consent is routinely secured by way of people submitting applications and through acts of registration. They believe the public servants have deceived the population into abandoning their status as freemen in exchange for the status of a "child of the province" or "ward of the state", allowing those children to collect benefits such as welfare, unemployment insurance, and pension plans or old age security. Freemen believe that the government has to establish "joinder" to link oneself and one's legal person. If one is asked whether one is "John Smith" and one says that is so, one has established joinder and connected the physical and human persons. The next step is to obtain consent, as they believe that statutes are merely invitations to enter a contract, and are only legally enforceable if one enters into the contract consensually. Otherwise, they believe that statute laws are not applicable. Freemen believe that the government is constantly trying to trick people into entering into a contract with them, so they often return bills, notices, summons and so on with the message "No contract—return to sender". Silence as consent One common pseudolegal belief shared by Freemen of the land is that "silence means consent", meaning that any claim or alleged statement of fact placed in a sworn document is proven true unless rebutted. This belief extends to Freemen's use of the "Notices of Understanding, Intent, and Claim of Right" which they consider stand as fact if any government actor can be persuaded to file them and does not rebut them afterwards. Dual identity A common pseudolegal belief, originating in the redemption and sovereign citizen movements, is that people have two parts to their existence: their "flesh and blood" identity as individuals and their legal "person". The former is joined to the latter by the birth certificate; some freemen claim that it is entirely limited to the birth certificate. Under this theory, a "strawman" is created when a birth certificate is issued, and this strawman is the entity who is subject to statutory law. The physical self is referred to by a slightly different name, such as "John of the family Smith" instead of "John Smith". "Notices of Understanding, Intent, and Claim of Right" documents may or may not refer to the "strawman". Secret financial instruments An implication of the strawman theory, also derived from the concepts of the redemption movement, is that there is some government-controlled account linked to a person through the birth certificate. This aspect of the theory suggests that the value of that account can be applied to financial obligations and even criminal charges. The concept behind this scheme has sometimes been called "money for nothing". == Court cases ==

Canada {{unordered list 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 markings and seals. Litigants engage in peculiar, ritual‑like in court conduct. All these features appear necessary for gurus to market OPCA schemes to their often desperate, ill‑informed, mentally disturbed, or legally abusive customers. This is crucial to understand the non-substance of any OPCA concept or strategy. The story and process of a OPCA scheme is not intended to impress or convince the Courts, ''but rather to impress the guru's customer''. In refuting each of the arguments used by Meads, Rooke concluded that "a decade of reported cases, many of which he refers to in his ruling, have failed to prove a single concept advanced by OPCA litigants". Dennis Larry Meads eventually abandoned pseudolegal strategies and retained counsel for a time. Even though the divorce was only finalized in 2017, he continued the rest of the litigation in an orderly fashion. • Elizabeth Watson came to public attention in 2011 as a self-styled legal adviser for Victoria Haigh in a child custody case; she was given a nine-month prison sentence for contempt of court (later suspended). She had defaced court documents by writing the words "no contract" and otherwise refused to accept or acknowledge the authority of a court of law, by among other things refusing to respond to the written legal notices or other correspondences from the court, and styling and addressing herself and Haigh in irregular fashion as "Elizabeth of the Watson family" and "Victoria of the Haigh family" respectively, instead of their names in the normal and usual mode of rendering. • Mark Bond of Norfolk, England, was arrested in 2010 for non-payment of tax, despite handing police a "notice of intent" stating that he was no longer a UK citizen. He told police that the notice had already been delivered to the Queen and the prime minister. He told the Norwich Evening News, "Today I asked the judge to walk into the court under common law and not commercial law. If I had entered under commercial law it would prove that I accepted its law. I was denied my rights to go in there." He was sentenced to three months custody, suspended on condition that he pay off the debt at £20 a week. • Dean Marshall of Preston, Holderness, near Hull, East Yorkshire, England, was taken to court after he was found to be growing 26 cannabis plants in his garden shed. Claiming he was a freeman on the land and therefore not guilty, he then attempted to call up Queen Elizabeth II and Prime Minister David Cameron as his witnesses, although he was told that neither was available to attend. A jury at Kingston upon Hull Crown Court dismissed his claims and convicted him of conspiracy to produce cannabis for which he was given a 12-month prison sentence, suspended for two years, and was ordered to carry out 150 hours of unpaid work. • Doug Jones of Pembroke Dock, Pembrokeshire, Wales, spent 22 days in prison after refusing to take a breath test. Jones questioned the authority and jurisdiction of the court, asking to see the judge's 'Oath of Office' which resulted in a sentence of fourteen days for contempt of court. He was sentenced to a further seven days after failing to attend a second hearing, but pleaded guilty to the original charges, receiving an endorsement on his driving licence. His interest in the freemen on the land movement started after watching documentaries on conspiracy theories surrounding the September 11 attacks and London bombings. His solicitor, Phillipa Ashworth, stated "On this occasion, in hindsight he appreciates it was not the time to test out philosophical theories behind this approach to life, and in hindsight it isn't something he would do again." • Gavin Kaylhem of Grimsby, North East Lincolnshire, England, wilfully refused to pay his council tax debts of £1,268.54 accrued between 2001 and 2008 and was sentenced to 30 days' imprisonment. He had claimed that he was a "freeman" and thus had no contractual duty under common law to pay. He refused to co-operate with magistrates' questions. • Mandeep Sandhu of Tividale, Sandwell, West Midlands, was stopped by police while driving a car that was insured to a woman. He refused to give his details to the officers, saying that to do so would mean "entering into a contract he could not afford to fulfil". He refused to co-operate at the police station and when brought before Sandwell Magistrates' Court, in October 2015, Sandhu was convicted of driving without insurance and obstructing police and was also found in contempt of court. He was sentenced to 14 days in prison for the contempt, and ordered to pay £330 in fines for the insurance charge with court costs and had 6 points added to his licence. A spokesperson for West Midlands Police said:The whole process meant that a simple matter of driving without insurance took up hours of police time – and ultimately a stint behind bars after being convicted of contempt of court while defending himself. We hope this case acts as a warning that to obstruct the police and the courts is not a wise move. • Errol Denton, a live blood analysis practitioner, was charged with offences under the Cancer Act 1939. At Westminster Magistrates' Court, he used a freeman defence. Since both the prosecution and the defence were rare, it was reported in the press. On 20 March 2014 he was convicted on all nine counts and fined £9,000 plus around £10,000 in costs. • In June 2019, a man who refused to register his son's birth under the Births and Deaths Registration Act 1953 lost an appeal to the London High Court after using a freeman defence. He cited an obscure law, the Cestui Que Vie Act 1666, and argued that registering the birth would be equivalent to "an entry into a ship's manifest", in which the child becomes "an asset to the country which has boarded a vessel to sail on the high seas", thus causing him to become controlled by the state. The judge ruled that the local council had the right to step in as the child's "institutional parent" to register the birth. • Cases have also been reported in Gloucestershire, Somerset, and Cornwall. Ireland • Bobby Sludds appeared in court in County Wexford in Ireland, charged with various motoring offences including two counts of no insurance. Before the police began to give evidence, the accused handed in a letter stating he was not Mr. Sludds but Bobby of the family Sludds and questioning the use of the word 'person' in the charge. He was given two suspended sentences and a fine of €670. (He had 24 previous convictions for motoring offences.) A similar case occurred in County Wexford in 2013, with a bankrupt businessman imprisoned for contempt of court being returned to jail for refusing to recognise the authority of the court, and in 2022, in which a mortgage defaulter questioned the legitimacy of the court, a case which his financial provider won. • Ben Gilroy took numerous court cases in the 2010s against several Irish banks and has represented people facing house repossessions. In 2018, he was banned by the High Court from taking further court cases against Allied Irish Banks and from advising others before the courts due to his history of bringing forward frivolous and vexatious litigation. He has been jailed on three occasions for contempt of court. Australia The following court cases have been based on the freeman argument: • Essenberg v The Queen B54/1999 (High Court of Australia, 22 June 2000) • Australian Competition & Consumer Commission v Rana (Federal Court of Australia, March–April 2008) • R v Stoneman (Supreme Court of Queensland, 30 July 2013) • Van den Hoorn v Ellis (District Court of Queensland, 30 November 2010) • Glew v White (Supreme Court of Western Australia, 10 July 2012) • Elliott v Commissioner of Police (District Court of Queensland, 25 July 2014) • Bradley v The Crown (Supreme Court of Queensland, 13 November 2020): In 2019, Ross James Bradley appeared in the Brisbane Magistrates Court, in Queensland, Australia, after he was stopped by police and found to be driving without a licence. He was fined after he argued that police had no power to charge him or commence proceedings before the court. Bradley appealed to the Queensland District Court (QDC), arguing that he was a "sovereign citizen" and the laws of Queensland did not apply to him. Bradley sought leave to appeal the order made by the QDC to dismiss his appeal of the Magistrates Court decision to the Queensland Court of Appeal (QCA). At the QCA, President Sofronoff noted that, given his sovereign citizen arguments it was difficult to understand why Bradley was "agitating his claims before this court, one which was established under the laws he says do not apply to him". The judge noted that the "paradox was apparently lost" on the applicant and dismissed the appeal. == Professional advisories ==

Lawyers and notaries in British Columbia and Alberta, Canada, have been warned by their professional bodies about dealing with freemen as clients. In particular, lawyers have been advised to be careful not to stamp or notarise the pseudo-legal documents that freemen typically use, so as not to create a perception of authority for such documents. == See also ==