[Phylum]

Why not to represent yourself in court. Especially read paragraphs 44 and 45.

R v Bruer

These are my favourite bits.

The accused, on various occasions throughout his evidence, pressed a number of plainly absurd positions including:

(i) All South Australian laws were invalid;
(ii) The Family Law Act 1975 (Cth) was invalid;
(iii) The accused’s actions had been lawful because the Copyright Act 1968 (Cth) gave him a right of ownership and possession of his children superior to any orders of a court including the Federal Magistrates Court exercising jurisdiction under the Family Law Act;
(iv) The Copyright Act was passed before the Family Law Act and therefore had validity in opposition to anything the Family Law Act purported to achieve;
(v) The Federal Magistrates Court orders had no legal validity or force;
(vi) As to the requirement in the Federal Magistrates Court order that the children were to “live with the mother” the accused said this,[36]

The accused made various statements and observations throughout his evidence, which, whilst not amounting to admissions, did serve to indicate the way he thought and his reasons for acting. I provide only some of many examples from his evidence of statements made that have influenced me in my ultimate finding that the accused did not genuinely believe that he had a lawful entitlement to take C out of the possession of her mother.
(i) Once the accused had picked C up at the health service ostensibly because he was concerned that she was to receive uninvited (by him) medical attention, it did not cross his mind to find out why she was to receive the medical attention,

. . . it didn’t matter, I had my daughter, I couldn’t give a fuck of why she was in the hospital.

(ii) When arrested by police outside of Cobar, New South Wales after having taken C from the Onkaparinga Adventure Playground, the accused said to the police words to the effect that he thought he would be safe once he crossed the border.
(iii) The accused admitted lying to the police when he was initially interviewed about his not being the driver of the 4WD vehicle during the police pursuit at Mount Barker.
(iv) The accused eventually admitted that he knew that the police had been following him at Mount Barker and wanted him to stop but “he was wasn’t stopping for anyone”.
(v) According to the accused, at the health service, SB refused to answer his questions and tried to ignore him; as a result he “went to take her away; nobody’s got the right to tamper without my permission”.
(vi) On one occasion when asked during examination-in-chief what was the reason he picked C up and took her out of the health service the accused said this,

the mother’s got no idea; she doesn’t know anything about medicine, there is nothing wrong with [C] anyway, in my personal opinion. If I’m not going to know what she’s been tampered with – you can’t just medically prescribe people in Australia, it’s unconstitutional.

(vii) After giving this answer the accused was asked whether he believed what he had done at the health service was lawful. He gave the following explanation,

Yes, I do and I still do.
. . . .
Plenty of reasons: for a start the children are copyrighted, which means they are dramatic work produced by using skill . . . the mother then entrusted me further than that, having me put my surname on them as a trademark which gives me the ultimate say what’s going on with them, until they turned 18 . . .. Everything that has been happening with them is an unlawful breach of that . . .
. . . .
. . . I still firmly believe that because the Copyright Act came along before the Family Law Act. That one overrides that one anyway. The Copyrighting Act says you have exclusive use of the thing, as I’m the copyrighting owner of them, I have exclusive use over them . . .

When asked if he believed that the Family Court [by which his counsel must have been referring to the Federal Magistrates Court] order were lawful the accused answered,

Not entirely, no, not at all, effected by corruption. I wasn’t entitled to even find out why decisions were being made. I’m still not entitled to find out why decisions are being made, it’s unconscionable conduct isn’t it.