Following the "sovereign citizen" fatal shootings last week in Australia, it is worth taking a moment to assess how this phenomenon is manifesting in Aotearoa New Zealand.
A police manhunt is under way for a 56-year-old man, a so-called sovereign citizen, accused of killing two police officers and injuring another in the August 26 attack in Porepunkah, a rural town in Victoria.
"Sovereign citizens" is an umbrella term for a global movement with many different beliefs and claims. They typically employ "pseudolaw"— legal-like rituals and claims that they use to justify their beliefs.
Accordingly, they might be called "pseudolaw adherents". This movement has increasingly been identified here.
Typically, these people believe they can opt out of the legal system by appealing to alternative interpretations of law, history or constitutional arrangements.
The core of their belief structure is that governments, courts and public institutions are corrupt and illegitimate, claiming instead that "true" law derives from obscure readings of foundational legal instruments, natural law, God’s law or common law.
While originating in the United States, sovereign citizen ideology has spread internationally, including to Australasia. In New Zealand, like in Australia, it intersects with local context and discourse involving colonial histories, indigenous rights, and resistance to state regulation, particularly at local levels.
The movement grew here in response to the Covid-19 pandemic, and has continuously prompted questions about whether it poses a serious threat.
In New Zealand, pseudolaw typically manifests in attempts to deny governmental authority through creative reinterpretations of legal documents, including human rights. Common strategies include claims that rates are illegitimate, that statutory laws do not apply without their consent and that courts lack jurisdiction over them.
A significant number of litigants — even non-Māori — have asserted that New Zealand’s constitutional system is invalid because He Whakaputanga (the 1835 Declaration of Independence) or Te Tiriti o Waitangi exempt them from Crown or state law.
These arguments often appear in letters to councils, in court submissions, or in direct confrontations with public officials.
Although dismissed by the judiciary as incoherent and without merit, such claims nevertheless consume public resources and erode trust in democratic institutions.
The number of sovereign citizens or pseudolaw adherents in New Zealand remains relatively small, particularly compared with the US. This makes sense, as the US has a much larger general population.
The Covid-19 pandemic provided fertile ground for pseudolaw rhetoric, as government mandates on vaccination, lockdowns and mask use were reframed by some groups as unlawful or unconstitutional.
Individuals on social media amplified these ideas, bringing together disparate actors who might otherwise have remained isolated.
While we had hoped this movement would gradually lose steam when restrictions and mandates were lifted, it does not appear to have slackened as anticipated.
While precise figures are difficult to determine, researchers, lawyers, judges, members of Parliament, local government and security agencies have noted an increase in pseudolegal activity.
The threat posed by sovereign citizens and pseudolaw adherents in New Zealand can be considered across three dimensions: legal disruption, social cohesion and potential for violence.
The primary threat is that pseudolaw arguments create inefficiencies in the legal system. Courts and councils must respond to spurious legal claims, wasting public time and resources.
Judges are unequivocal in their dismissal of such arguments, but face a recurring burden as individuals continue to file meritless cases or refuse to comply with lawful obligations. Councils face the same problem with those who refuse to pay rates or comply with other obligations.
The second threat is ideological: these movements undermine social cohesion and trust in democratic institutions.
By advancing the idea that legal authority is illegitimate based on conspiracy theories, adherents weaken shared understandings of the rule of law. This erosion of legitimacy likely encourages non-compliance with obligations, from taxation to enforcement.
Third, there is a latent risk of violence. Sovereign citizens and pseudolaw adherents maintain they are peaceful.
However, overseas experience demonstrates sovereign citizen adherents sometimes escalate into violent confrontation when their claims are rejected. The 2010 shooting of two US police officers by a father and son who subscribed to sovereign citizen beliefs illustrates this danger. US criminology scholar Christine Sarteschi has catalogued over 600 events involving pseudolaw and violence.
In New Zealand, threatening rhetoric has occasionally emerged, with some adherents directing abuse at public officials, judges, and politicians. The possibility of isolated acts of violence is low, but cannot be discounted.
Overall, sovereign citizen and pseudolaw activity in New Zealand currently poses a low but non-trivial threat. This is not a movement that is likely to destabilise the state or attract mass support.
It is much more likely they will continue to impose burdensome costs on legal and political systems. However, the activity holds the potential to radicalise small numbers of individuals.
Dismissing pseudolaw as mere nonsense risks overlooking the grievances that fuel its adoption. Contrarily, over-emphasising its threat may lend undue legitimacy to its adherents.
• Dr Stephen Young is an associate professor at the University of Otago’s Faculty of Law. — Newsroom
