In a previous article, I wrote about an “Organized Pseudolegal Commercial Argument” or “OPCA” that had made its way to the Ontario Court of Appeal. In that particular case, the OPCA litigants claimed not to be subject to the Income Tax Act, the Excise Tax Act and the Ontario Business Corporations Act because the various legislation infringed their rights to life, liberty and security of the person as guaranteed by Section 7 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. They argued that the Charter provided them with a right to choose whether to be subject to Federal and Provincial laws – without their consent, they said, the laws did not apply to them. The Court of Appeal disagreed.
The latest OPCA to come before the Courts reaches beyond the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and beyond Canadian law altogether. It reaches across the Atlantic Ocean to the United Kingdom and, in fact, back through history to the 13th Century. In what Justice Robert Graesser has coined “Magna Carta Lawful Rebellion” or “MCLR”, litigants are swearing allegiance to a UK nobleperson pursuant to Article 61 of the Magna Carta of 1215 and claiming that they are thereby released from the application of legislation, courts, police or government actors who are guilty of “high treason”. In a case recently before Justice Graesser in the Alberta Court of Queen’s Bench, the purported representative of a mother involved in a family dispute explained the position as follows in her covering letter:
This is to inform you that [the mother] is Lawfully standing under Article 61 of the 1215 Magna Carta which was Invoked on March 23rd 2001 according to Constitutional Royal Protocol. The Court of Queens Bench is an Unlawful Assembly with No Authority to deal with this matter since the Invocation of Article 61 thus All Judgments made by the Court of Queen’s Bench in this matter are Null and Void. [The mother] and All of her Property are Protected by the Constitution and the People of the Commonwealth Realm. We require the Immediate Restoration of Her Property see the enclosed Exhibit: G in the notice of Conditional Acceptance.
Failure to restore the Property of [the mother] within 7 Days of receiving this letter will constitute as High Treason, which still carries the Gallows. I urge you to consider Eichmann v. the People “I was just doing my job” is no defence. Nuremberg.
Maxim in Law Ignorance of the Law is No Excuse
The “Property” shown in the photograph enclosed as “Exhibit: G” was, sadly, a four-year old girl, presumed by Justice Graesser to be the mother’s daughter.
The Magna Carta of 1215 was the result of negotiations between King John of England and rebel “baron” landowners to end an uprising by the landowners. Article 61 of the Magna Carta authorized a counsel of 25 rebel barons to seize the “castles, lands, possession, or anything else” of King John if he did not adhere to the law’s terms. The Article also provided that “[a]ny man who so desires may take an oath to obey the commands of the twenty-five barons…”.
Flash forward to 2001, when a group of 28 new “rebel barons” sent a petition to Queen Elizabeth II asking that she withhold Royal Assent to any legislation that would ratify the European Union’s 2000 Treaty of Nice. The Treaty, according to the petition, would lead to further “losses of national independence”, would “introduce an alien system of criminal justice”, would abolish habeas corpus and jury trials, would permit foreign “men at arms” into the UK, would undermine the chain of command of the UK military, and would make UK laws subject to an alien “Charter of Fundamental Rights”. If Queen Elizabeth II were to assent to the ratification of the Treaty, she would breach her Coronation Oath, allegiances to her would be undone, and government would be by tyranny.
Nothing came of the 2001 “rebellion”, but MCLR litigants have since been swearing allegiance to Lord Craigmyle (one of the signatories of the petition sent to the Queen) and then claiming to have escaped the application of the law pursuant to Article 61 of the Magna Carta. How does that relate to Canadian law? The argument is that the Magna Carta was received in Canada as part of the Constitution. It has been claimed to have “supraconstitutional” status as the “foundation of the rule of law itself”.
In actual fact, the Magna Carta of 1215 does not have any legal effect in Canada or at all. The Magna Carta of 1215 was repealed by the Magna Carta of 1216, made between the rebel barons and the regents of King John’s son, Henry III, following King John’s death in 1216. The new Magna Carta did not include Article 61 or any other provision for a “lawful rebellion process”. Subsequent versions of the Magna Carta were enacted over the years, of which only the 1297 Magna Carta has any remaining effect in UK law. The immunity of the Church of England is recognized in Article 1. “Ancient Liberties” are granted to the City of London in Article 9. That the rights of “free-men” are not to be infringed except by legal processes is recognized in Article 29.
While those three sections of the 1297 Magna Carta (none of which relate to lawful rebellion) may continue to have some relevance in the UK, they have no effect in Canada. When the UK Parliament passed the Canada Act 1982 (UK), c. 11, Justice Graesser writes, it cut the “jurisdictional linkage” between the UK and Canada. Canada enacted its own constitutional legislation, The Constitution Act, 1982.
What “pseduolaw” will they think of next?
Read the decision at: 2020 ABQB 790
