Warahi v Chief Executive of the Department of Corrections [2022] NZCA 105 (1 April 2022)

Last Updated: 5 April 2022

IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF NEW ZEALAND I TE KŌTI PĪRA O AOTEAROA

CA671/2021 [2022] NZCA 105

	BETWEEN	MAUI WARAHI Appellant
	AND	CHIEF EXECUTIVE OF THE DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS Respondent

Hearing:	15 February 2022
Court:	Goddard, Katz and Edwards JJ
Counsel:	Appellant in person P J Gunn for Respondent
Judgment:	1 April 2022 at 11.00 am

JUDGMENT OF THE COURT

The appeal is dismissed.
____________________________________________________________________

REASONS OF THE COURT

(Given by Katz J)

• [1] The appellant, Maui Warahi, also known as Jay Maui Wallace, is currently detained at Northland Region Corrections Facility. (We will refer to him as “Maui” in the remainder of this judgment, as that is his preferred form of address). Maui faces charges of contravening a protection order,^[1] common assault,^[2] threatening to kill^[3] and injuring with intent to injure.^[4]
• [2] On 3 November 2021, Maui filed a document in the High Court at Auckland headed “Application for a Writ of Habeas Corpus”. The document included portions of the Habeas Corpus Act 2001 and various other material. A supporting “Statutory Declaration of Identity” and an “Affidavit of Identity” were also filed, which Brewer J noted “fit the “sovereign being” model that the Court is well familiar with”.^[5]
• [3] An application for the writ of habeas corpus is a challenge to the legality of a person’s detention.^[6] As no specific allegations regarding the lawfulness of Maui’s detention were raised in the documents that Maui filed, Brewer J held that the application was invalid. It was accordingly struck out.^[7]
• [4] Maui appeals that decision. On appeal, the Crown engaged with the merits of what it understood Maui’s arguments to be, based on his written and oral appeal submissions (which were more comprehensive than those advanced in the High Court). We will take the same approach, rather than focus on the validity of Maui’s original habeas corpus application.

Is Maui lawfully detained?

• [5] The onus is on the Department of Corrections to establish that Maui’s detention is lawful. If it is not, the Court must order his release.^[8]
• [6] The Crown has provided the Court with copies of the warrants to detain in respect of Maui covering the period that is relevant to this appeal. At the time of the appeal hearing Maui was detained pursuant to a warrant to detain issued by Judge Bayley in the Whangarei District Court on 9 February 2022. The earlier warrants provided by the Crown cover the period from 27 October 2021 until March 2022. They were issued in respect of various charges including assault, breach of conditions of intensive supervision, obtaining by deception and assaulting Police.
• [7] In Bennett v Superintendent, Rimutaka Prison (No 2), this Court held that once a prison superintendent or other official produces a committal warrant or other authorisation, the applicant for a writ of habeas corpus must show why the warrants are not a sufficient answer to his application:^[9]

In practice, once a prison superintendent or other official named as respondent produces a committal warrant or other authorisation ... it would then be necessary for an applicant for habeas corpus to demonstrate that the documentation did not in fact provide a lawful justification in the particular circumstances.

• [8] The onus, therefore, shifts to Maui to show why the warrants provided by the Crown do not provide a lawful basis for his detention.
• [9] Maui adheres to a belief system that has its roots in the Sovereign Citizen movement, an ideology that first emerged in the United States in the 1970s. His core belief, for present purposes, is that he is not subject to the jurisdiction of the State (including legislation enacted by Parliament or decisions made by the courts). This belief is based (at least in part) on the dual persona theory — the proposition that individuals have two personas, one of flesh and blood and the other a separate legal or “corporate” personality that is subject to the jurisdiction of the State. Followers of the Sovereign Citizen movement believe that it is possible to dissociate themselves from their legal or corporate persona, and hence free themselves from the jurisdiction of the State. Maui believes that he has successfully done this and, as a result, the State has no authority over him. Applying this reasoning, Maui believes that his current detention is unlawful. This is reflected in his “Affidavit of Identity” which states, in full:

1. 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.

2. 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.

3. 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.

4. That I am who I say that I am NOT who the overt or covert agents of the State say that I am.

5. That I do not knowingly, willingly, intentionally, or voluntarily surrender my sovereign inalienable rights according to the law of nature.

6. That the state has no legal jurisdiction or sovereign authority justified in origin to hear this matter.

7. That it is the responsibility of the complainant to bring the correct parties before the courts.

• [10] Arguments about a person’s legal personality, including the “dual persona” theory associated with the Sovereign Citizen movement, are not uncommonly raised in applications for habeas corpus.^[10] They are also raised in a variety of other contexts.^[11] Arguments along such lines have been consistently rejected by the courts as legally untenable, including in a number of cases involving Maui.^[12]
• [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. The Crimes Act 1961 is one such Act of Parliament. 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.
• [12] In conclusion, we are satisfied that the warrants to detain produced by the Chief Executive demonstrate a lawful basis for Maui’s detention. Maui has not advanced any arguments that might justify a conclusion that his detention is unlawful.

Result

• [13] The appeal is dismissed.

Solicitors:
Crown Law Office, Wellington

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^[1] Family Violence Act 2018, ss 9, 90(a) and 112(1)(a). Maximum penalty of three years’ imprisonment.

^[2] Summary Offences Act 1981, s 9. Maximum penalty of six months’ imprisonment or $4,000 fine.

^[3] Crimes Act 1961, s 306. Maximum penalty of seven years’ imprisonment.

^[4] Section 189(2). Maximum penalty of five years’ imprisonment.

^[5] Warahi v Chief Executive of the Department of Corrections [2021] NZHC 3059 at [6].

^[6] Habeas Corpus Act 2001, s 6.

^[7] Warahi v Chief Executive of the Department of Corrections, above n 5, at [11].

^[8] Habeas Corpus Act, s 14(1).

^[9] Bennett v Superintendent, Rimutaka Prison (No 2) [2001] NZCA 286; [2002] 1 NZLR 616 (CA) at [70].

^[10] Examples include Smith v Chief Executive of the Department of Corrections [2019] NZCA 362; Te Tangata Whenua v Chief Executive of the Department of Corrections [2017] NZSC 189; and Nathan v Chief Executive of the Department of Corrections [2020] NZHC 2486.

^[11] Niwa v Commissioner of Inland Revenue [2019] NZHC 853, [2019] NZAR 1104; Meenken v Family Court at Masterton [2017] NZHC 2103; and Wallace v R [2011] NZSC 10.

^[12] See Warren v Chief Executive of the Department of Corrections [2017] NZSC 20; Rangitaawa v Chief Executive of the Department of Corrections [2013] NZCA 2; Martin v Chief Executive of the Department of Corrections [2016] NZHC 2811 at [20]; Wallace v Chief Executive of the Department of Corrections [2017] NZSC 1 at [4]–[5]; and Warahi v Department of Corrections [2020] NZHC 2917, upheld on appeal in Warahi v Department of Corrections [2020] NZCA 587.