Australian self-proclaimed sovereign citizen and shooting suspect Dezi Freeman appeared in a 2018 episode of A Current Affair. Photo: Screenshot / A Current Affair
Explainer - A man accused of killing two police officers in Australia has been called a "sovereign citizen". What does that mean?
The man accused of killing two police officers in Australia this week has been linked to the "sovereign citizen" movement.
Suspect Dezi Freeman, who is still on the run after the shooting in rural Victoria, has had multiple run-ins with the law. He once called police "terrorist thugs" and was involved in an attempt to have former Premier Daniel Andrews tried for treason, the ABC reported.
He also sued an officer to the Supreme Court last year over the cancellation of his driver's licence for two years. Court documents show he represented himself, and during the hearing called police "friggin' Nazis" and "terrorist thugs". "What's worse than a swastika is the inverted pentagram, the Satanic symbol that they wear and they behave like it as well," he said during the hearing, The Border Mail reported.
The court threw out his case.
What is the sovereign citizen movement?
Generally speaking, it is people who do not believe that government laws apply to them.
It's more of a loosely organised movement than an organised political group.
It has roots dating back in America to various anti-government and militia movements.
The movement has been in New Zealand for at least a decade, with multiple examples of its adherents running afoul of the law.
What do they believe?
Sovereign citizens often believe that by declaring themselves to be "living people" or "natural people" they can avoid restrictions such as fines, taxes and other rules.
"I think probably the easiest way to understand it is that they are underpinned by this concept called pseudo-law, and pseudo-law is a parallel legal system that sort of vaguely resembles the real legal system but it doesn't have the legal validity," journalist Charlie Mitchell told RNZ podcast The Detail earlier this year.
In practice, believers in the movement often unleash a tangled web of wordy claims to support their beliefs.
Do their beliefs work in court?
Not really. A man who appeared in court in Dunedin charged with allegedly stealing rescue helicopter equipment was accused by the judge of "wasting my time" after speeches challenging the court's jurisdiction.
"I take the liberty of challenging your jurisdiction," the suspect said in court. "How can it be that you have jurisdiction when I'm rangatira?"
In another case in 2022 involving a truck driver who claimed that as a "living man" he was not subject to the laws of New Zealand, Justice Peter Churchman ruled the case was "full of pseudo-legal mumbo jumbo that is characteristic of the 'sovereign citizen' school of thought".
"The courts have consistently held that it is an abuse of process for a litigant to attempt to employ sovereign citizen concepts in seeking to avoid or defeat any State, regulatory, contract, family or other obligations recognised by law," the judge said.
Another man's application to have himself and his five children declared dead was thrown out in a Wellington court in 2023. An unsworn affidavit attached to the claim largely contained quotes from the Bible, Shakespeare, Francis Bacon, Webster's Dictionary, Black's Law Dictionary and the Oxford Dictionary, among other texts.
Another woman in 2024 who was pulled over at a police checkpoint and violently resisted arrest was said to have told the police she "did not consent or recognise New Zealand police authority" and said it was a "paper crime".
There have been plenty of incidents involving them in Australia as well, such as a man pulled over in a traffic stop refusing to comply with police with comments like "The law that you say is not a law," and "It's not a crime. Where is the victim?"
Are they dangerous?
In a 2024 presentation to the In-House Lawyers Association by New Zealand police and Tasman District Council, police noted the movement has been involved in issues over false car registrations, "legal" documents suing police officers, common law sheriffs and false IDs for diplomatic immunity.
In that presentation it was noted the movement is "not inherently violent, but individual SovCit adherents have been responsible for incidents of politically motivated violent extremism, primarily against law enforcement", but said there was a realistic possibility that someone inspired by the movement's rhetoric could commit a "spontaneous act of extremist violence in New Zealand".
The FBI has described the movement, which lacks any organisational structure, as "domestic terrorism" in the US and calls followers "anti-government extremists who believe that even though they physically reside in this country, they are separate or 'sovereign' from the United States".
- with the ABC
