IN THE MAGISTRATES COURT OF QUEENSLAND
BETWEEN
Stephen Wayne WILLIAMS,
Senior Sergeant of Police and Superintendent of
Traffic Complainant
and
Rick Allan EAST Defendant
DEFENDANT’S OUTLINE OF SUBMISSIONS
SUMMARY OF THE FACTS
1. The ticketing
officer witnessed the defendant driving his car in the parking lot of Sunnybank
Market Square whilst Defendant and passengers were not wearing seatbelts.
2. On questioning the
Defendant stated he was not wearing a seatbelt, and has not used a seatbelt
whilst driving for the past seven years, as a manifestation of his knowledge
and religion.
3. The Defendant lives
a consecrated life in accordance with the vow of the Nazirene,
as a disciple and shepherd of TheWay.
4. The Defendant
raises his children, the passengers in the car, to also live in a lifestyle and
mindset that manifests their highest expression of self.
5. The Defendant
explained to the officers the relevance of not wearing a seatbelt to the
manifesting his thoughts, conscience and religion, a summary of which is contained
in these submissions and of which much further detail can be read at http://ebionite.com/seatbelt.htm.
6. The Officers asked
whether a claim to freedom of religion should therefore serve as an excuse to a
murderer to not be arrested if he states that murder is a part of his religion,
later admitting that perhaps is an oversimplification of the issues.
7. Australia is a
party to the treaty International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
(‘ICCPR’), defining and protecting the right to freedom of thought,
conscience and religion.
8. Queensland
Parliament declares explicit support for the whole of ICCPR in Section 3
of the Anti-Discrimination Act 1991.
9. The Full Federal
Court affirmed in Minister of State for Immigration and Ethnic Affairs v
Ah Hin Teoh [1995] (‘Teoh’) there is a reasonable expectation that public
administrators will exercise their discretion in manner that takes into
consideration Human Rights obligations Australia has committed to through
International Treaties.
DEFENDANT’S SUBMISSIONS
1. The Transport Operations (Road Use
Management) Act 1995 (the Act) forces people to live in accord with
Secular Humanism and therefore creates an apparently inadvertent violation of
the rights of people in Australia to freedom of thought, conscience and
religion, and orders the defendant to engage in a behaviour and mindset that he
knows to be ultimately self destructive.
2. The Queensland Police have and use broad common
law discretion in enforcement of the Act.
In this instance the officers:
2.1
failed
to demonstrate a understanding and respect for the importance of freedom of
thought, conscience and religion, and the widely accepted limits of its
application; and,
2.2
hence
did not adequately weigh the public interest in forcing the defendant to act in
accord with a Secular Humanistic mindset and wear a seatbelt versus the serious
implications such an action would have on the Defendant’s quality of life,
livelihood and capacity to provide for his children by indiscriminate enforcement
of the Act and its resulting threat of ultimate licence suspension.
3. The Full Federal Court of Australia
confirmed in its decision in Ah Hin Teoh v Minister of Immigration and Ethnic Affairs [1994]
FCA 1017 (‘Teoh’) that the Australian
Government's ratification of the ICCPR created a legitimate expectation
that administrative decision-makers take into appropriate consideration Australia’s
International legal obligations where relevant.
4.
Potential claims that there is an
overriding public interest that supersedes the defendant’s right to manifest
his religion must prove the defendant’s actions are “inimical to the peace,
good order, and morals of society” and should also explain the relative
increases in road casualties shown to occur as jurisdictions introduce
mandatory seatbelt laws, particularly amongst pedestrians.
5.
The Act, or at least sections 263-267
of the Act, are unconstitutional under the Queensland Constitution because a
law that egregiously violates the human rights of the people is FUNDAMENTALLY
in conflict with the limitations inherent in the wording granting the
concession to the State to make laws for the “peace welfare and good government
of the colony”. Even more counterintuitive is the notion that such an Act could
in any way be considered in the interests of “peace welfare and good government
of the colony” when evidenced that it likely increased physical deaths and
injuries since its inception.
6.
In any event, the Act is in conflict
with the Defendant’s inalienable God given rights to freedom of thought,
conscience and religion.
THE
ABOVE SUBMISSIONS ARE SUPPORTED AS FOLLOWS:
Submission One
Government Enforced Religious Practice and Mindset
1.
The Transport Operations (Road Use
Management) Act 1995 (the Act) forces people of faith based religions and
religions of an evolved spiritual nature to live in accord with the mindset and
behaviour of Secular Humanism, a mindset that denies the truth expressed in the
Bible and in this quote from http://ebionite.com/seatbelt.htm:
“There is no
such thing as an accident -- only events that have a pre-existing cause that
man chooses to remain blind to. Accidents can only be avoided by developing the
innate resources of the mind that is able to sense and perceive the underlying
causes in what is known as the (Etheric) Field. To
those who are attempting to develop those intuitive spheres of mind, the
wearing of a seatbelt is a surrender to ignorance and the Paradigm of the
Atheist mindset.”
2.
In inhibiting the full and balanced
development of mind that can only take place in an environment that embraces
the diversity of the human condition by protecting individual rights and
freedoms, the Act causes genuine harm to the community and its members.
3.
The Act requires the defendant to
adhere to an anti-Biblical mindset and Atheistically based quasi-religious
philosophy proven counterfeit by modern science and requires the denial of
fundamental religious spiritual knowledge and rejection of the Will of God.
What is Religious Freedom?
4.
Black's Law Dictionary defines
Religious Freedom as: “... embraces not only the right to worship GOD according
to the dictates of one's conscience, but also the right to do, or forbear to
do, any act, for conscience sake, the doing or forbearing of which is not
inimical to the peace, good order, and morals of society.”
5.
Article 18 of the International
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (‘ICCPR’), which Australia is a party to
and Queensland Parliament has stated explicit support for, reads:
“Article 18
1. Everyone
shall have the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion. This right
shall include freedom to have or to adopt a religion or belief of his choice,
and freedom, either individually or in community with others and in public or
private, to manifest his religion or belief in worship, observance, practice
and teaching.
2. No one
shall be subject to coercion which would impair his freedom to have or to adopt
a religion or belief of his choice.
3. Freedom
to manifest one's religion or beliefs may be subject only to such limitations
as are prescribed by law and are necessary to protect public safety, order,
health, or morals or the fundamental rights and freedoms of others.
4. The
States Parties to the present Covenant undertake to have respect for the
liberty of parents and, when applicable, legal guardians to ensure the
religious and moral education of their children in conformity with their own
convictions.”
6.
The minimum standards set forth to be
applicable in times of a declared state of emergency under United Nations Human
Rights Committee General Comment 22, reads:
“The right
to manifest a religion or belief may be limited but only if the state can show
that this was both ‘prescribed by law’ and ‘necessary to protect public safety,
order, health, or morals or the fundamental rights and freedoms of others’
(emphasis added).”
7.
The defendant’s actions are reasonable
free expressions of religion unless the court determines that driving a motor
vehicle while occupants forbear from wearing a seatbelt is “inimical to the
peace, good order, and morals of society” or, by the ICCPR definition, ‘necessary
to protect public safety, order, health, or morals or the fundamental rights
and freedoms of others’.
8.
The Convention on the Rights of the Child (‘CROC’) Article 14 provides:
1. States
Parties shall respect the right of the child to freedom of thought, conscience
and religion.
2. States
Parties shall respect the rights and duties of the parents ... to provide
direction to the child in the exercise of his or her right in a manner
consistent with the evolving capacities of the child.
3. Freedom
to manifest one's religion or beliefs may be subject only to such limitations
as are prescribed by law and are necessary to protect public safety, order,
health or morals, or the fundamental rights and freedoms of others.
9.
While CROC is not a treaty like the
ICCPR is and therefore cannot be enforced in international courts, it should be
considered persuasive as it is a mere expansion of ICCPR Article 18 Paragraph
4.
10.
Any man of strong moral convictions
will not engage in an activity that he knows to be harmful to the body, mind or
spirit of himself or others, particularly those put in his charge such as his
children, even if ordered to do so. The
importance of freedom of thought, conscience and religion is to prevent
circumstances where an authority, recognised by the people, over steps its
bounds and orders an individual or group to conduct themselves in manner that
that individual or group knows to be harmful to the body, mind or spirit of
themselves or others. A failure to
adhere to the recognition of freedom of religion in matters of an individual’s
private life will at best create a stand-off between upstanding moral individuals
and the government, either of which may well be less than fully enlightened. Freedom of religion does not create chaos, as
some suggest, but requires an effective and empowered judicial arm that can
assess situations and ensure that a proper balance between individual and
public interests is maintained.
11.
It would be against all reason for the
defendant to:
1. work to create an environment for
his children to expand their minds beyond the limitations of the organic body;
2. teach his children to think
independently and develop all spheres of mind, including the intuitive, that
are beyond the capacity of most people in our present culture; and,
3. then require them to live in
accordance with the dictates of Secular Humanism that inhibits that development
by demanding they wear a seatbelt.
Queensland Parliament’s Support of ICCPR
12.
In light of the Queensland Parliament
declaring explicit support for the whole of ICCPR in Section 3 of the Anti-Discrimination
Act 1991, it can only be assumed,
in absence of any evidence to the contrary that the violations in the Act of
the universal right of freedom of religion, confirmed in ICCPR, were unseen by Parliament and were therefore unintended.
13.
Indeed it seems the Act would, if it
were intended to override the human rights in Article 18 without justification,
constitute an act of religious discrimination under Section 101 of Queenland’s Anti-Discrimination
Act 1991 by all State officials that have supported the creation and
continuance of the Act.
Submission Two
Queensland Police Discretion
1.
The Queensland Police have and use broad
common law discretion over when to enforce various sections of the Act, a
discretion in part there to protect the public from unintended consequences of
legislation and an overreach of Government power.
2.
Traffic Operations Advisory Unit
advises, “There is no definitive policy in relation to
discretion” when asked for any policies in relation to
exercising their discretion. See Annexure A for the complete response.
3.
In this instance, comments by one of
the Officers asking whether a claim to religious freedom should therefore serve
to prevent a suspected murderer from being arrested if they make a claim that
their religion required them to do it, suggests the officer has a trivial view
of religion and fundamental lack of understanding of the well established
limits to which freedom of thought, conscience and religion apply. Murder is easily discernable as having significantly
greater impact on the rights and safety of others than a private individual’s
choice concerning wearing a seatbelt.
4.
The Police therefore did not take into
account that their discretionary enforcement of these sections of the Act, for
no apparent public benefit, requires the defendant to choose between living in
accord with the lifestyle and mindset of an Atheist, the tenets of which the
defendant completely rejects, or face the possibility of future loss of
licence, impaired capacity to work and inability to care for children to the
same standard driving permits. This
scenario would almost certainly require the defendant to also leave his
employment and move to a jurisdiction that has stronger protection of religious
freedom, dividing his children from their mother. It is important that our public
administrators from all arms of government recognise the great personal impact
that decisions to deny an individual of their human rights can have in what
might seem like a trivial matter to those administrators.
Submission Three
Legitimate Expectation Decisions Consider International Obligations
1. The Full Federal Court of Australia
confirmed in its decision in Ah Hin Teoh v Minister of Immigration and Ethnic Affairs [1994]
FCA 1017 (‘Teoh’) that the Australian
Government's ratification of the ICCPR created a legitimate expectation
that administrative decision-makers take into account Australia’s International
obligations where relevant. The High
Court subsequently provided further clarification on the legitimate expectation
doctrine in Minister of State for Immigration and Ethnic Affairs v Ah Hin Teoh (1994-1995) 183 CLR 273.
2. In Teoh the
court considered whether government officials determining an application for
permanent residency gave enough consideration to the rights of the children
when denying Ah Hin Teoh’s application
for permanent residency after he was convicted for six counts of importing
heroin and three counts of possession of heroin.
3. Given the relative risk posed to the public
between allowing a heroin importer permanent residence versus allowing an
individual to choose for themselves whether to wear a seatbelt, it seems
nonsensical to override the defendant’s freedom of religion out of a perceived
public interest if the guidance provided in these cases is accepted.
Submission Four
Responses to Common Assertions Of Overriding Public Interest
1.
The ticketing officer posed the
argument that the public interest served by the seatbelt law is to lessen the
risk that someone that crashes into you will feel sad should you die because of
a combination of their carelessness driving and you not being belted in.
2.
While it is not possible to show what
would have occurred if mandatory seatbelt legislation came in, statistical
analysis of road related casualties shows relative increases coinciding with
mandatory seatbelt legislation in most jurisdictions implementing mandatory
seatbelt laws versus comparable no-law jurisdictions. John Adams, SAE
Transactions, The Efficacy of Seat Belt Legislation 1982:
“Figure 15 compares the Australian
road death index to the non-law index. The law came into effect in the various
states of Australia between December 22, 1970 and January 1, 1972. Between 1970
and 1972 the Australian index dropped 10 points while that of the non-law
countries increased by two. But in 1973 8 the Australian index increased seven
points while that of the non-law countries dropped 4.5. Between 1973 and 1978
the Australian index remained virtually unchanged while that of the non-law
countries dropped 20 points. A report of the Australian House of
Representatives Standing Committee on Road Safety noted that while car occupant
deaths had decreased in the early 1970s non-occupant deaths had increased. It
observed 'This strongly confirms the contention that vehicle occupants were
being affected by a measure not operative so far as other road users are
concerned.' (29) Belt usage estimates range from 19 per cent to 37 per cent
before the law, and 69 per cent to 94 per cent after the law.
3.
After seeing this pattern repeatedly
across jurisdictions (see Annexure C) John Adams hypothesises that “Protecting
car occupants from the consequences of bad driving encourages bad driving” but
as Allan Cronshaw writes at http://ebionite.com/seatbelt.htm:
“there is
also another dimension to the findings that has not yet been considered. …
every person unknowingly and unconsciously has some access to the higher areas
of mind that is not supported by the organic body. And it is these higher
causal centers of mind that would be the equivalent of
the Field that the Quantum Physicists have recognized as the source of all
events in this realm that surrounds all matter which has been compared to a
"blemish" where interacting fields collide. And as Prof. Adams has
observed in his findings, wearing a seatbelt has the tendency to block the
intuitive access of the drivers conscious mind to these higher areas in the
causal Etheric areas of mind, with the result being
an increase in pedestrian and cyclist [casualties] because the seat belt
impedes the intuitive connection between the conscious and unmanifest
higher conscious … areas of mind. … this can never be duplicated in the
laboratory -- or understood from what has been described as the conventional
"fossilized" thinking of a very large segment of our culture.”
4.
If saving lives by intruding into
private decisions about personal conduct is the objective of government, they
would have a greater effect if they acted to prevent people from eating sugar,
processed flour, chemicals and meat, taking unnecessary medication and living
sedate lives. While the speed at which
these lifestyle choices destroy lives is slower than that of a crash, the
results are more sure then the affects of merely not wearing a seatbelt. Diet, smoking, medication and slothful lifestyle
choices kill far more people prematurely than car ‘accidents’ yet the
government respects it is the right of people to choose how they live and how
they die through their lifestyle choices.
5.
The above could serve as an argument
for government to make our every choice in life concerning how to think and act,
if only it had the competency to what is best for us. Of course it is self evident that what is
best for our growth of mind is to have and exercise our own conscientiousness
in making decisions so as to best take responsibility for and learn from those
decisions. This starts with standing up
for what is right at every opportunity we are given.
6.
If Queensland Government, police and
courts cannot consider and accept that the individual has the right to do or
not do an action in accordance with his thought, conscience and religion as
benign to public safety as choosing whether to wear a seatbelt, then it is
difficult to conceive of any freedom of religion within the state that would be
protected from explicit or inadvertent violation.
Submission Six
Recognition of Natural Law and Inherent God Given Rights
1.
Notwithstanding all the above, regardless
of any parliamentary Acts, the Constitution or precedents established in the
courts of man, we each have unalienable God given rights to self determination,
including freedom of religion.
2.
The Founding Fathers of the United
States, being Deists, recognised these unalienable God given rights when they
drafted the American Bill of Rights into the U.S. Constitution, however those
rights were not dependent upon that codification. The codification only serves to help protect
those rights from what is the natural progression of all societies. Walter
Williams in a commentary entitled America's Move Towards Tyranny wisely wrote: Supreme Court
Justice Louis Brandeis warned, "The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in
the insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well meaning but without understanding."
The freedom of individuals from compulsion or coercion never was, and is not
now, the normal state of human affairs. The normal state for the ordinary
person is tyranny, arbitrary control and abuse mainly by their own
government. While imperfect in its
execution, the Founders of our nation sought to make an exception to this ugly
part of mankind's history. Unfortunately, at the urging of the American people,
we are unwittingly in the process of returning to mankind's normal state of
affairs. While Australia is also “unwittingly
in the process of returning to mankind's normal state of affairs”, if the
courts fail to recognise our unalienable
God given rights our return will be quicker and even more assured.
3.
While positivism dominates the day to
day administration of law in Australia today and can be argued to be more
objective and therefore more fair, natural law is implicitly recognised as
sitting over the Crown and all law posited from it. The Westminster system of government is
predicated upon the belief that Sovereignty is given to the anointed King or
Queen directly by God and in recognition of this, during the Coronation Oath
the Queen is asked, “Will you to the utmost of your power maintain the Laws
of God …”. Australian officials
therefore cannot argue that there is no such thing as the ‘Laws of God’ or that
those Laws cannot be acted upon, at least not without undermining both the oath
of Crown they are sworn to serve and the entire premise by which the Crown
exercises its power. Indeed, other than
a belief in divine providence in accordance with Rome’s divine intercessor
doctrine, the only other justification for believing sovereignty rests with a
regal is the notion that the Queen is a conqueror and everyone else is a
submitted subject, otherwise we are simply under the arbitrary control Walter
Williams suggests is man’s normal state of affairs in the above quote. Positivism is commonly asserted by secular
humanists as creating a less subjective legal system from the perspective of
the courts, taking away some of their discretion, but in fact it is more
subjective, manifesting this subjectivity in the arbitrary control exercised by
law makers detached from the courts and the reality of how their laws affects
individuals. Natural law is and should
remain the mainstay of Australian law.
4.
The higher reality is that each of us
are created sovereign with inalienable God given rights and can rightly
delegate to the institutions we create only a portion of such rights and power
that we possess as individuals. Even
rational atheists recognise that logically we cannot give to another that which
we do not ourselves posses. Therefore
the only laws of man that hold any validity are those that channel the power
and rights that we each have naturally as individuals. For example, we each
have the right to protect ourselves and others, and therefore we can create a
police force with the power to help protect us as well. We do not each have the right to dictate the
mindset and lifestyle that others live, or even to curb it unless it poses a
risk to the safety or freedom of the public.
All rational people whether Atheist or genuinely spiritual will
therefore recognise that we cannot legitimately create a government, regal,
church, school or any other institution that has this power. In the final accounting for what each of us
have done in our lives, actions taken to exercise the illegitimate powers of government
over the natural rights of man are seen as the exercise of tyranny, and serve
to create the karma under which that Soul’s future incarnations will live and
grow, and the karma of those that are complacent to that tyranny.
5.
The High Court in Teoh
affirmed that our public administrators have an obligation to give due
consideration to Australia’s international obligations when exercising their
discretions in the enforcement of the laws.
Article 18 of the ICCPR has its roots in the recognition of the above
truths and without giving full and well thought out consideration of this
higher perspective it is not possible for government officers to meet the
obligations they have to the individuals they serve. In this case there is a manifest failure on
the part of the ticketing officers and the police prosecution to give
considered thought to the above and the defendant should therefore not be found
guilty, the connotation of which is, according to Black’s Law Dictionary,
‘evil’, ‘wrongdoing’ or ‘culpable’, a slight hardly appropriate for someone
merely striving to live in the highest expression of Truth and Light while
causing no harm to others.
7.
If Queensland Police had given these
matters full consideration the only conceivable rational decision would have
been to do as North Carolina prosecutors did in December 2011 in two virtually
identical cases involving Nazirenes that were due to
be heard before a jury in the North Carolina Supreme court. In North Carolina vs
Allan Cronshaw (IIifs4901) and North Carolina vs Emmanual Pohoreski
(IIifs4900) the prosecution dismissed the charges prior to the jury
trial. Copies of the dismissals are in Annexures B and C.
DATED
this 28th
day of December 2011
Rick East
Defendant
Annexures
Annexure A – Email
Traffic Operations Concerning Discretion
From: Cramp.Paul@police.qld.gov.au
Date: 16 May 2011 10:09AM
Subject: FW: Email Enquiry – Rick EAST – OSCR
11/3943
Mr EAST,
Thank you for your email of 28
April 2011 regarding a Road Rules/Traffic Matter. A copy was forwarded to the
State Traffic Support Branch for consideration and response.
It is not the practice of the
Queensland Police Service to issue $0 Penalty Infringement Notices. The
penalties for not wearing a seatbelt in Queensland exist in an attempt to
reduce the loss of life and injury on our roads.
There is no definitive policy
in relation to discretion, however, the use of discretion for life endangering
traffic offences such as failing to wear a seatbelt is not encouraged.
I trust this information is of
assistance.
Yours sincerely
Paul CRAMP
Senior Constable 7354
TRAFFIC
OPERATIONAL ADVISORY UNIT
Ph: (07) 3238 6666
<mailto: Cramp.PaulR@police.qld.gov.au>
Annexure B – dismissal
in North Carolina vs Allan Cronshaw
Annexure C – dismissal
in North Carolina vs Emmanuel Pohoreski
