IN THE HIGH COURT OF NEW ZEALAND WELLINGTON REGISTRY

I TE KŌTI MATUA O AOTEAROA TE WHANGANUI-A-TARA ROHE	
CIV-2023-485-814
[2024] NZHC 2	

UNDER	the Habeas Corpus Act 2001	
IN THE MATTER	of an application for a writ of habeas corpus	
BETWEEN	ROGER WILLIAM BLAKE
Applicant	
AND	CHIEF EXECUTIVE OF THE DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS
Respondent	

Hearing:	4 January 2024	
Counsel:	Applicant in person via AVL  S B McCusker for Respondent	
Judgment:	4 January 2024	

JUDGMENT OF RADICH J

[1]	The applicant seeks a writ of habeas corpus.1 However, he has been granted bail by the District Court. The reason for his continued detention, under a warrant to detain, is that he has refused to sign the bail bond. His refusal to sign the bail bond is based upon a number of arguments that I come on to address. Prominent amongst them is the view that the person named in the bail bond is a corporate entity, as distinct from the applicant as a person and that, as a person, he should not be required to sign a document that he regards as self-incriminating and relating to a false identity.

1	The applicant seeks to draw a distinction between “Roger William Blake”, the named applicant as a corporate form, on the one hand, and a natural born living person described as “roger-william” on the other. For reasons I go on to give, the distinction is not sustainable and I refer in this decision to all aspects of the applicant as “the applicant”.
BLAKE v CHIEF EXECUTIVE OF THE DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS [2024] NZHC 2 [4 January 2024]

[2]	I am satisfied that the application cannot succeed because, for the reasons I go on to give, there is no illegality in the applicant’s detention.

Background

[3]	Following a judge-alone trial, Judge Crowley found the applicant guilty of  29 charges under the Medicines Act 1981.2 The respondent understands the offending to relate to the applicant’s offer for sale of bleach and other chemicals as purported remedies for Covid-19 and HIV. The applicant takes issue with this description and refers to having sold water treatment products. However, nothing turns on the point for the purposes of this application, which is concerned with the validity of the detention and not with the underlying convictions.3

[4]	The applicant remained at large ahead of sentencing. On 20 December 2023, he came before the District Court Judge in order to deal with pre-sentencing matters. As the Judge said in a minute of 22 December 2023 (which addressed the applicant’s appearances before him on 20 and 22 December 2023), he granted the applicant bail at the conclusion of the hearing.4 He did so on one condition: that the applicant report to the Department of Corrections for the preparation of a pre-sentence report. The Judge said that, in the absence of a condition of bail requiring the applicant to report for that purpose, the applicant would not have attended the interview to enable the report to be prepared. Accordingly, the Judge remanded the applicant on bail until a sentencing hearing in February 2024.

[5]	Following the appearance on 20 December the Judge was advised that the applicant was refusing to sign his bail bond form as is required by s 31(2)(c) of the Bail Act 2000 (the Act).

[6]	It would appear that the applicant was then remanded in custody for several hours. As the respondent observes, his detention at that point was likely to be under

2	CRNs 20075500217–20075500245.
3	Habeas Corpus Act 2001, s 14(2) and Manuel v Superintendent of Hawkes Bay Regional Prison
[2002] 1 NZLR 616 (CA) at 70.
4	Minute of Judge B A Crowley of 22 December 2023.

s 31(3) of the Act which enables a defendant, granted bail, to be detained if, amongst other things, he or she has refused to authenticate the notice of bail.

[7]	The applicant was then remanded in custody under a warrant issued under s 28 of the Act with a direction that he be brought back before the Court on 22 December 2023. In his 2022 minute, the Judge said that, when the case was recalled before him that morning, he advised the applicant that: 5

(a)	his signing of the bail bond would not be taken as an admission on his part that he is Roger Blake and that he was free to sign the bail bond in whatever form he wished;

(b)	he was required to attend the interview with the Department of Corrections to enable the preparation of the pre-sentence report; and

(c)	the reason for the bail condition to that effect was to enable the sentencing to proceed expeditiously.

[8]	The Judge went on to record in the minute that, at that stage, the applicant repeated points that he had been making previously to the effect that he is not    Roger Blake and that the Judge himself was guilty of committing offences. The Judge records having implored the applicant to think of his family and to sign the bail bond so that he could have Christmas with them.

[9]	When the applicant declined to do so, the Judge then issued a further warrant to detain him under s 28 of the Act. The warrant records on its face that the Judge granted bail to the applicant on the condition that he report to the Thames Probation Office by 4 pm on 28 December 2023 and that the warrant is for the purpose of holding Mr Blake under s 28(b) of the Act only until he is willing to sign his bail bond, following which he is to be released from custody.

[10]	The applicant has been remanded in custody at Spring Hill Prison since then. “Offender Notes” created by the respondent’s staff for the time during which the

5	Minute of Judge B A Crowley of 22 December 2023 at [7].

applicant has been in custody record the respondent’s staff as having inquired on a number of occasions whether the applicant wished to sign the bail bond form and record that transport was offered to the applicant to take him to the probation office in the event that he signed the form by 28 December. The offender notes record the applicant as having refused to sign the form “with a name that had been fabricated”. They record the applicant as having said that he would be breaking the law and committing fraud if he signed the document. Nonetheless, the respondent’s staff have repeatedly offered the applicant the ability to sign the bail bond and to be released. They were met with much the same response each time.

[11]	The bail condition has now expired. It required the applicant to report to the Thames Probation Office by 4 pm on 28 December 2023. However, Mr McCusker for the respondent has said that the respondent is prepared to make arrangements for a probation officer to visit the applicant in custody to enable the pre-sentencing report to be prepared.

The application for habeas corpus.

[12]	The application appears to be dated 21 December 2023. It was recorded as having been filed on 22 December 2023. Ellis J, who was on duty on 22 December, recorded in a minute that day that s 9 of the Habeas Corpus Act 2002 requires an application for habeas corpus to be accorded urgency and that s 9(3) requires the Registrar to allocate a date for an inter parties hearing that is no later than three working days after the date on which the application is filed. The Judge observed that the next working day (in accordance with the definition in the Legislation Act 2019) is 3 January 2024. Ellis J went on to say, in that minute:

As I have said, whether Mr Blake remains detained appears to be entirely over to him. For that reason alone it would be open to me to direct that the matter not be accorded urgency at all. But out of an abundance of caution I direct that the matter be set down for an inter parties hearing before the Duty Judge on either 3 or 4 January 2024. If Mr Blake is no longer detained by that date, the hearing will be vacated.

[13]	The application itself is filed in the name of a third party, who I understand to be the applicant’s wife. A number of allegations are made in the document. In essence, the points advanced appear to be that the applicant, as a living person, differs from the

corporate form given to him in Court documents and that he is not subject to the jurisdiction of the Court. Two examples of points made in the application document are these:

The security, the registrar[s] and the judicial officer, are holding living man
:roger-william: in custody with intent to torture him, in an attempt to coerce
:roger-william: into signing a self-incriminating contract, identified as a bail bond with a false identity written on it, this is in an attempt to use coercion and deception with an intent to force :roger-william: to contract with these private corporations[s]/organizations[s]; and

…

This demand is made on the grounds that;
(a)	living man :roger-william: being the living, flesh and blood, has been mistaken or forced to be, for want of jurisdiction, as the [lay] corporate/artificial entity/employee/vessel known as Mr [maritime title and/or rank] Roger William Blake, personam [and/or all/any other derivatives/artworks of the name];

[14]	It is said in the application that the District Court in detaining the applicant, is itself committing a range of alleged crimes including “Dealing in Slaves”, “Kidnapping” and “Money Laundering”. It is said that the “prohibited acts and detention” are in breach of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and challenges to the District Court Judge’s authority are made. A range of relief is sought including the applicant’s release.

[15]	In an email to the Court on 2 December 2023 headed “A further demand for a writ of habeas corpus”, similar points are made including a reference to the applicant being required to sign a “self-incriminating contract identified as a bail bond with a false identity written on it” and, again, to an alleged lack of jurisdiction on the part of the District Court.

[16]	Just in advance of the hearing this morning, three further documents were filed on behalf of the applicant. The first is entitled “Memorandum in Equity to the Registry/Bank/Court for Habeas Corpus”. It was filed electronically. The second document is entitled “Demand for a Writ of Habeas Corpus Ad Subjiciendum” and was filed by post. The third document is called “Living Testamony in the form of an Affidavit of Truth”; emma-wihelmina-juliana:’s 3rd Notice of Demand for a Writ of Habeas Corpus at Ad Subjiciendum”. It, too, was filed by post.

[17]	When I went through these documents with the applicant at the beginning of the hearing this morning, the applicant said that he had not seen the documents filed by his wife on his behalf but indicated that he would proceed on the basis that I would read the documents and that he would make oral submissions to me in addition to them. The oral submissions that were then made were consistent with the terms of the documents, although the documents did raise some additional points that were not covered by the applicant in his oral submissions.

[18]	A feature of the documents filed this morning is that the first of them seeks to name Judge Crowley, Jeremy Lightfoot (the chief executive of the respondent) and Neil Beales (the chief custodial officer of the respondent) personally as parties. The second of them does not name those parties but, instead, seeks to name as parties the Minister of Police and the Minister of Justice. I explained to the applicant during the hearing that, under s 14 of the Crown Proceedings Act 1950, proceedings such as these could only be instituted against the appropriate officer of the Crown in the name of which he or she may be sued on behalf of the Crown or of any Government department. I explained that the appropriate respondent was the Chief Executive of the Department of Corrections rather than any named individual. The applicant appeared to accept this point but emphasised that he had not seen the documents that had been filed on his behalf.

The respondent’s position

[19]	The respondent says that the application is made on grounds that are in substance a challenge to a legislative requirement imposed by the Bail Act – the requirement that the applicant acknowledge the conditions of bail by signing the bail bond form. It is said that this is not a matter that can be challenged by way of a habeas corpus application. It is said that, to the extent that the applicant challenges his convictions or the substance of the decision to grant him bail on a condition, they are matters that do not relate to the warrant to detain and could only be advanced by way of appeal against conviction or a further bail application or appeal. It is said that the applicant is lawfully detained pursuant to a valid warrant for detention and that the warrant is a complete answer to the application.

The warrant to detain

[20]	I am satisfied that the warrant under which the applicant is detained is valid. Under s 168 of the Criminal Procedure Act 2011, if a proceeding is adjourned, a person facing criminal charges may be allowed to go at large, may be granted bail under the Act or may be remanded in custody while the proceedings are adjourned.6

[21]	Section 30(3) of the Bail Act is directly on point here. That provision is in the following terms:

When considering bail pending sentencing, a judicial officer or Registrar may impose any condition that the judicial officer or Registrar considers reasonably necessary to ensure that the defendant takes the steps necessary for the proceedings to be progressed within a reasonable timeframe.

[22]	A condition requiring a defendant to report to a probation officer to enable the preparation of a pre-sentence report is such a condition.7

[23]	Under s 31 of the Act, the Registrar is to prepare a bail bond which set outs the conditions of bail imposed. Under s 31(2), the Registrar or (as the case may require) the judicial officer or prison manager must require the defendant to authenticate the bail bond.8

[24]	If a defendant refuses to authenticate the notice of bail or bail bond then, under s 31(3)(b), they may be detained in the custody of the Court. If that provision applies, then under s 28 of the Act, a warrant may be issued for the detention of the defendant until a date, time and place appointed for bail to be reconsidered. That is what occurred here. The statutory basis for the warrant, and the warrant itself, are all in order.

[25]	That does on its face, as the respondent submits, provide a complete answer to the application. Under s 6 of the Habeas Corpus Act, an application for a writ of habeas corpus challenges the legality of a person’s detention. Under s 14 of the Act, if the defendant fails to establish that the detention is lawful, then the Court must grant a writ ordering the release of the detained person as a matter of right. Under s 14(2),

6	And see s 27 of the Bail Act 2000.
7	Morrell v New Zealand Police [2015] NZHC 937 at [15].
8	Bail Act 2000, s 31(2)(c).

a Judge is not entitled to call into question a conviction of an offence by a Court of competent jurisdiction or a ruling as to bail by a Court of competent jurisdiction.

[26]	As the Court of Appeal has said, the existence of a warrant of detention has an important effect and it would be necessary, in the face of a warrant, for an applicant for habeas corpus to demonstrate that the warrant did not in fact provide lawful justification in the particular circumstances.9

[27]	It is not for the Court in considering an application for habeas corpus to examine the bail decisions that underlie the warrant. Equally, an application for habeas corpus cannot be used to challenge convictions or conditions of detention. There are other processes that need to be used to challenge the lawfulness of a conviction or conditions of detention.10

[28]	The applicant, in his oral submissions, sought to distinguish the cases from which these propositions are drawn on the basis that the parties involved in them had each committed a crime, whereas he had not. No distinction is tenable on that basis. The principles that are drawn from the cases are directly relevant here.

Grounds raised by the applicant

[29]	Although the burden is on a respondent to establish that detention is lawful, in practice, once the respondent has produced the appropriate documentation – which is the case here – it is then necessary for the applicant to demonstrate that the documents do not in fact provide a lawful justification for detention in the circumstances.11

[30]	Amongst the documents referred to in [16] above and in the applicant’s oral submissions, a broad range of grounds have been advanced in support of a submission that there is no lawful justification for detention. Certain grounds are repeated in the

9	Bennett v Superintendent Rimutaka Prison [2002] 1 NZLR 616 (CA) at [70] and see Manuel v Superintendent of Hawkes Bay Regional Prison [2006] 2 NZLR 63 where the Court said that it would be a rare case where habeas corpus procedures would permit a Court to inquire into challenges on grounds which lie upstream of apparently regular warrants.
10 Ericson v Department of Corrections [2014] NZCA 118 at [4]–[9].
11 Bennett v Superintendent Rimutaka Prison, above n 9, at [70].

documents  and  some  of them overlap.	I address the primary points made in the paragraphs that follow.

A distinction between corporate and personal entities

[31]	As explained earlier, a central plank in the applicant’s case is that there is a distinction between “Roger William Blake” as a form of corporate or artificial entity and “roger-william”, as a living person. The applicant does not recognise “Roger William Blake” as referring to him such that, in his view, Court documents in that name, including the bail bond and the warrant, are not valid.

[32]	There are no grounds to uphold the applicant’s allegations that the warrant is not valid by reason of there being a distinction of the kind described.

[33]	The applicant’s “dual personality” or “split person” theory is sometimes referred to as part of “pseudolaw”, a term that refers to a phenomenon through which litigants deploy “a collection of legal-sounding but false rules that purport to be law”.12

[34]	Dual personality theories essentially contend that people have two separate and distinct entities: a natural or corporeal form; and a fictitious, legal personality. The theory has been explained in these terms:13
The basis of [the split-person argument] is that there are natural individuals and some sort of ‘artificial’, corporate or fictive legal personality. As mentioned above, adherents believe that every person is an individual sovereign. Because every person has inalienable, natural rights, governments assert their authority over natural or ‘flesh and blood’ personal to make them subjects. Governments do that, for example, when a birth certificate, bank account, driver’s license 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 nature or living man or woman is free from government subjection when they assert their status, claim it, and prove it.

12     Stephen Young, Harry Hobbs and Joe McIntyre The growth of pseudolaw and sovereign citizens in Aotearoa New Zealand courts [2023] NZLJ 6 at 6, citing Donald Neteolitzky “A Rebellion of Furious Paper: Pseudolaw as a Revolutionary System” (Paper delivered to the Centre d’expertise et de formation sur les intégrismes religieux et la radicalisation (CEFIR) symposium: ‘Sovereign Citizens in Canada’, Montreal, 3 May 2018).
13 At 8. As the authors note, however, these types of arguments tend to be fluid (or jumbled), and accordingly may not always be capable of clear articulation.

[35]	These theories have been rejected consistently by the Courts as lacking any legal foundation. In Niwa v Commissioner of Inland Revenue, Ellis J observed that attempts to employ such concepts to avoid or defeat any state, regulatory, contract, family or other obligations recognised by law “will inevitably be an abuse of process”.14 And as the Court of Appeal has said:15
[11]  Acts of Parliament, including criminal enactments, are binding on all persons within the geographical territory of New Zealand. The Courts of New Zealand must uphold all Acts of Parliament as enacted. … 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 [the appellant] are untenable and without legal foundation.

[36]	Similarly, in relation to a writ of habeas corpus, it has been said that:16

Incomprehensible statements about being a natural person or not being a natural person or a trustee or a beneficiary and not being susceptible to the laws of this country are properly and summarily rejected by the Courts.

[37]	Accordingly, there is no tenable basis to say that the warrant to detain does not in fact provide lawful justification under this head.

Matters relating to the District Court Judge

[38]	A broad range of matters were advanced by the applicant during the hearing, and have been raised in the papers filed on the applicant’s behalf, relating to the District Court Judge. For example, the applicant has said that he holds a lien against the Judge, that a statement of defence needed to be provided by the Judge, that the requirement to sign the bail bond was a “revenge attack” by the Judge, that the Judge has failed to prove jurisdiction, that he has failed to prove the existence of his warrant as a Judge, that he is requiring the applicant to sign a document that he should not be required to sign, that he has not provided full disclosure and that he has acted in breach of the principles of natural justice.

[39]	In the memorandum referred to in [16] above, it is alleged that the Judge “is employed as a person/legal entity/banker by the Registry Court being a registered bank

14	Niwa v Commissioner of Inland Revenue [2019] NZHC 853, [2019] NZAR 1104.
15	Warahi v Chief Executive of the Department of Corrections [2022] NZCA 105 at [16].
16	Che v Chief Executive of the Department of Corrections [2017] NZHC 11 at [9].

of the Reserve Bank of New Zealand registered in the Security and Exchange Commission”.

[40]	The Court has no jurisdiction to consider allegations of that sort in the context of an application for habeas corpus. For the reasons I have given, the warrant was issued appropriately by the Judge and in accordance with the relevant statutory provisions.

A “contract” requiring the applicant’s consent

[41]	It is said that, in order for the warrant to be valid, there would need to be a contract between the applicant and a relevant Crown entity. It is said that a contract requires the applicant’s consent. And it is said that an inquiry as to whether the applicant is “lawfully” detained can only be made under the common law, rather than the law of contract. These arguments are not tenable. It is not accurate to suggest that there has been any breach of contract here. A conviction, a grant of bail on conditions and a warrant to detain are not in any way a contract.

The Court’s equitable jurisdiction

[42]	It is said, in the first of the three documents referred to in [16] above, that the application for habeas corpus is founded in equity and that “there is only one de jure equity court and court of record where proceedings are enrolled in this country, being situated at 191 Main Street, Huntly and being the Royal Crown Court … “ It is said that “this cannot be changed to civil or criminal which are both commercial proceedings being part of a banking process …”

[43]	The High Court’s equitable jurisdiction was put in place through 19th century legislation and remains through s 12 of the Senior Courts Act 2016. While s 180 of the Senior Courts Act provides that, if there is any conflict or variance between the rules of equity and the rules of common law in relation to the same matter, the rules of equity will prevail, the law and equity apply side by side. There is no basis for this ground of challenge to either the Court’s jurisdiction or the legality of the applicant’s detention.

Section 23 of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990

[44]	Section 23 of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990 is cited in the written material filed for the applicant but there is no explanation as to allegations that are made in relation to it. That provision provides for the rights of persons arrested or detained. The provision is not in issue here in circumstances in which, as I have found, the warrant to detain is in order.

Allegations against individuals

[45]	As mentioned in [18] above, a range of allegations are made against the District Court Judge, the Chief Executive of the Department of Corrections and the Chief Custodial Officer of the Department of Corrections in their personal capacities. It is said that these individuals must appear in person and present evidence to prove that the applicant is not lawfully detained.

[46]	As I have indicated, there is no basis for the inclusion of these individuals in an application for habeas corpus. The respondent’s case is advanced appropriately through its counsel.

Allegations under other statutes

[47]	The applicant has raised a number of allegations against others under the Criminal Procedure Act 2011, the Crimes Act 1961, the Policing Act 2008, the District Court Act 2016, the Corrections Act 2004 and the Sentencing Act 2002. None of them are of relevance to the application or have any bearing upon the challenge to the legality of the applicant’s detention.

The United Nations and the World Bank

[48]	It is said for the applicant that the defendants in the proceeding “are trading in legal tender as defined by the UN and World Bank” such that certain principles should apply to them as a consequence. Neither the respondent nor individuals referred to in the documents filed for the applicant are trading in legal tender.

International treaties

[49]	Reference has been made by the applicant to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and to The Hague Conference on Private International Law. As Gendall J said in Delamere v Attorney-General, breaches of international treaties or other international instruments cannot be relevant to inquiry into lawful detention if the requirements for a warrant to detain are properly met.17

[50]	International instruments do not bear upon the legality of the applicant’s detention.

Minute of Ellis J

[51]	The third of the three documents referred to in [16] above is a 16-page document that is said to address the minute of Ellis J to which I have referred to in
[12] above. The document appears to be a form of critique of that minute, taking issue with certain of its terms.

[52]	Ellis J’s minute explained why the proceeding should be set down for hearing on an urgent basis. It is not something that bears upon the issues in the substantive application that I have determined.

Outcome

[53]	I am satisfied that the respondent has established that the applicant’s detention is lawful. He is held under a valid warrant to detain. The applicant has not demonstrated that the warrant does not in fact provide a lawful justification for detention. There is no basis upon which a writ of habeas corpus could be granted.

[54]	For these reasons, the application for a writ of habeas corpus is declined.

17	Delamere v Attorney-General [2022] NZHC 699 at [13].

Radich J
Solicitors:
Crown Solicitor, Wellington for Respondent