to think the 'common law/freeman on the land' thing is a whole load of bollocks?

[qwertypop]

I've come across a few people over the last few years that take it very seriously and bang on at length about how the police and courts have no authority over them as they are self declared 'freemen'. Something to do with common law being the only true law in Britain, I think? And not having to wear bike helmets or pay for TV licenses or repay your debts also seem important to the ones I've had the dubious pleasure of meeting.

A couple I met at the weekend have taken the biscuit though and not registered their baby's birth because apparently this will mean said baby grows up to be a 'freeman' (she's actually a girl but the term appears to be freeman anyway). They believe quite firmly that to register her birth will mean that the law assumes her and her name (which is a fucking corker, of course) are one and the same and that only by NOT registering her birth can she be free to be a human being. Quite what this actually means is a mystery to me and tbh the mumbo jumbo they gave me by way of an answer leads me to suspect they don't really know either

I've tried to read up on it but all the info I can find is written in a style you'd expect of an paranoid, delusional, and possibly hallucinating chimpanzee let loose with a legal dictionary.

So AIBU to think this is bollocky woo of the most fucking ridiculous type? Or is someone going to come along and actually enlighten me as to wtf its all about, preferably in plain English with no pseudo-legalese?

The judge had to bring her oath in from home - she was a bit narked as she had out it in a lovely frame and it was quite heavy - then we just got on with the hearing. We all tried to talk to him and get him to engage as it was his baby possibly up for adoption but he has obviously been getting advice from some very dodgy people and he wouldn't really participate.

mini - but isn't that what's annoying about all this nonsense? He's tracing it back, so far as I can see, to a legal status (being a freeman) that was really useful in keeping property under the control of the few. And he doesn't seem to see the contradiction.

Of course, I can't tell how much I'm missing here as I'm utterly confused whether we're talking Roman law or Canon law or common law and which millenium we're looking back to, but I think that is what he's talking about.

So having demanded the oath of the judge and refused to sit down, the court just continues as normal? So it is pointless?

WILLIAM ROPER: So, now you give the Devil the benefit of law!

SIR THOMAS MORE: Yes! What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?

ROPER: I’d cut down every law in England to do that!

MORE: Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned ’round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man’s laws, not God’s! And if you cut them down, and you’re just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I’d give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety’s sake!

Playwright Robert Bolt had it about right. Anyone who fancies living wholly without laws and without the government should try Somalia at the moment. It is apparently a lovely place to live, if you have a shit load of money. Pretty much a hell-hole for anyone else though.

MiniTheMinx The earliest English law codes were almost exclusively about property rights and compensation. Most people can work out that theft/physical attacks are wrong and in a better world that wouldn't need much legislation at all. The problem with the legal system is that it deals with human beings, the ones that we stealing toys off each other in the playground. I don't think we have a perfect system but I think that we have a system that is better than many and that we need to work at and engage with.

I don't think I am up to Hobbes at the moment. I know that there is a lot of philosophy surrounding the idea of nations. I have read about the transition to nation states but on the whole I think it is a bit beyond me. However I would like to at least take the credit for knowing my limitations.

Seven year old is now trying to teach me minecraft. I can't get that either. I'll try and keep up.

That is such a great quotation.

Mind you, apparently More kept a heretic chained up in his garden, so he might have been a bit of a wanker too.

legality is not reality

Good luck running that argument in any Crown Court, m'dear.

also I believe their is one that says that older laws are more enforceable than new laws

not the case. a fundamental principle of parliamentary supremacy is that parliament cannot bind its successors meaning that if you have two statute laws that conflict then the latter will take precedence (and is arguably is why we don't have a written constitution). In terms of common law, if the point of law in question in seemingly decided differently in two cases then the one that is decided by the higher court will prevail (eg the supreme court will trump the court of appeal). This the principle but is quite simplistic, the mechanisms that underlie it are quite complex and depend greatly on the decided facts.

Mic - if you're interested in the origins of English law and you have a few minutes, have a look at the law of equity. I specialise in tax law now but equity and trusts is genuinely fascinating especially how it's adapted from a 'would you mind looking after this pig for me whilst I go fight the crusades' to modern law.

I can't agree with what you've stated thus far but I'm enjoying the debate so thanks for sharing

calculatorsatdawn oooo I like the sound of that and it's something I don't know much about. Do you have any links to something for a vaguely literate layman.

Wow

Never heard of these people

Wonder how much of the CAB's precious time they take up...

Yes, quite, what law what century. As far as I can see the modern liberal state and modern law serves the specific mode of production-capitalism, and whilst I am no fan, it is a step in the right direction. How can one argue in favour of (whichever) some previous system of laws when the social system has moved beyond it.

I guess when I think of natural law, I think of Hobbes who is one of the Granddaddies of the liberal democratic state. I seem to recall that he believed without law "man would wage war with all". In order to protect man's "natural rights" he should submit to the rule of the sovereign. The "natural law" was how people would behave naturally in going about acquiring their means of subsistence, he turned this on its head preferring to focus on natural rights. Of course we don't have sovereignty, I seem to think that there is some weird situation with the UK, where it isn't explicitly stated who has, the crown, parliament or the people.

And it still stands that the liberal state came into being in response to changes in the mode of production, away from feudalism.Of course this Freeman nonsense seems to posit that we can have modern industry/capitalism without contract law, taxes and welfare, whilst maintaining the liberal state, because most of these NUTS are libertarians!!!

I feel like I am reading an introductory OU textbook, alternating with sheer madness.

Calculatorsatdawn - law of equity and trusts is genuinely fascinating? You obviously had better lecturers than me!

Human Rights is wholly a man-made, government-made, statute based concept. The most fundamental human right of all is the Rule of Law - that every person shall have the equal benefit and protection of the laws of that apply within a particular geographical boundary. In the UK we already abrogate some of these protections for some people- for instance, if you do not have permission to reside in the UK (a right granted by statute) then you do not have a right to work, to benefits, to healthcare to education. This government is proposing to limit rights for those people even further, so they will not have a right to shelter, and most significantly, will not have a right to access the law.

LisaMed I'm very impressed with your grasp of law and history, to go with your tea. Minecraft, that is a different thing, mine have had me in training for months now.

ah, poo. only in the dusty textbooks from my degree I'm afarid Lisa.

Equity used to run alongside the common law and would be applied (and would trump common law) if the result of the application of common law would be unfair. Try googling Lord Denning, he's the mac daddy of the law of equity.

The law of trusts came from the crusades and served to seperate beneficial and legal title of assets and was part of the law of equity. ie common law says that Lord Smith has the title deeds to that piece of land therefore it's his. Equity says Lord Jones gave it to him to look after whilst he was off putting swords through people with alternative religous beliefs. Equity wins. Trust law is born.

MiniTheMinx I don't know much about Hobbes, and I am shaky on political theory after Thomas Aquinas (though I did read Machiavelli a long time ago). I think you are absolutely right though. In our complicated society we need to know the rules so that we can function.

I am thinking of doing Law A level. If I can keep up here I should be able to keep up with that.

It was bluebell time in Kent...

In summertime village cricket is a delight to everyone...

Happy days.

calculatorsatdawn I may have a rummage. It's like knowing that the banking system did actually grow with the Knights Templar. There are so many fascinating nooks and crannies.

MinitheMinx - twelve years working at a County Court (one grade above filing), two years as a legal secretary and I left when my seven year old was born, but I found it interesting. I am also addicted to history and heckle the History Channel. I am paying attention to a lot of the links.

The government is also intending to repeal the Human Rights Act 1998, which since it was enacted in 2000 (and to a limited extent, since the ratification of the European Convention on Human Rights in 1950) has provided a framework from which our Common Law based system of court-based precedent has created a hugely important right of the individual to have their own particular circumstances considered, assessed and balanced against the interests of the state and the greater good.

The government does not like the fact that the courts have the power to look at the particular circumstances of individuals, and to say that the laws it produces must be modified to give effect to certain fundamental freedoms and rights of the individual. In its stead proposes a 'Bill of Rights', which if it is anything like its recent efforts at legislating 'human rights' will be hugely restrictive, and will work only on a tick box system that will benefit an 'acceptable' minority.

This is where there is a real danger of infringement on human rights and civil liberties. Not in relation to some old laws that are hundreds of years out of use, but in relation to laws currently in existence and ones that the government wants instead.

It is sheer stupidity to faff about with (un)historical notions of being a 'freeman' and deliberately absolve yourself from engaging with the very real threats that currently exist to our freedoms.

Thistledew I wish I could like your post.

I remember when this was introduced, not long before I left the court service one District Judge who was also a lecturer in law explaining the reasoning behind the Human Rights Act and to say that when our favourite nutter was banging on about it and we really wished it had never been thought of, we needed to remember why it had come about and what it meant for everyone.

It was bluebell time in Kent...

In summertime village cricket is a delight to everyone...

My personal Denning favourites:

Old Peter Beswick was a coal merchant in Eccles, Lancashire...

Mr Thornton was a freelance trumpeter of the highest quality...

Both contract cases rather than equity IIRC (privity and exclusion clauses I think) but no less gripping for all that.

LisaMed I don't know anything about law but I'm reading politics and philosophy. I should imagine studying law would be interesting, go for it. Laughing at you, heckling the history channel, I used to love a debate with my history teacher. Have you read "What is history" tis very interesting because it goes into how history is told as narrative, the ideology, methodology and politics of how we interpret history from just a few facts.

From a philosophical view point, I find it strange that freemen ideas stem from liberalism, and yet the laws and the state itself in its present form are the result of liberalism. Strange. One of the links, was interesting because it said that they were opposed to corporatism, but didn't the modern liberal state come into being to protect and perpetuate the acquisition of private property under capital, thus allowing the corporations of the C17th and C18th to prosper. Something to do with good King George, getting upset because the East India company had too much power, but he acquiesced, probably because those around him were raking in the goodies.

Thistledew wow, is this one of the unintended consequences of globalisation, a more nasty and authoritarian state. Very worrying.

Love Lord Denning. Ten years since I did my degree and he'll still get quoted on my classmate's facebook walls. There must be an appreciation society for him somewhere

It's just more wank for inadequates. And I agree with whoever said upthread that it's the sort of thing that appeals to men a whole lot more than it does to women. One of my FB friends linked to something a few days ago that tied this Freeman bullshit in with MRA bullshit - I think it might even have been something that Elliot Rodgers had an interest in. (NOt saying, of course, that all the Freeman fuckwits are going to turn mass-murderer if everyone else doesn't stop laughing at them, just that their mindset is, or can be, on the unpleasant side.)