Robert Sudy is a seasoned researcher of pseudolaw theory, having been involved with the movement on social media in Australia for more than a decade. The mythology behind most pseudlaw concepts is extremely peculiar, and understanding the concepts requires journey into the conspiratorial and demon-haunted mystical shadow world of the online community.
Robert’s personal journey into the “Freeman Delusion” begins with himself being firmly convinced of several pseudolaw “common law” arguments, passing on the information to others online for several years, and applying the strategies in driving and several other matters. After running a test case before New South Wales Magistrate David Heilpern in 2013, Robert’s search for a hint of legal merit in the theories gathered momentum.
Armed with a thorough understanding of the concepts theorised, he took the “devil’s advocate” approach in online debates with some of the most prominent leaders in the movement, both in Australia and overseas. He concurrently researched how the individual arguments were rejected previously in the higher courts, and dividing legal fact from pseudolaw fiction, slowly debunked the fundamentals one by one. The conclusions reached in his journey are compiled in this comprehensive analysis of hundreds of separate and yet connected pseudolaw theories, citing thousands of references, from cases in the federal and higher state courts in Australia and overseas, the associated domestic provisions in legislation, and other reputable legal sources around the world.
While concepts like the “strawman duality” have been referred to by the courts as “Litigation Poison”, this analysis is ultimately a call to reason for all involved in perpetuating these internet myths, that ultimately can only cause harm and loss to those gullible enough to act upon the information. If people attempt to apply these legally unintelligible pseudolaw concepts in serious matters before the courts, this damage can unfortunately include incarceration, broken families, severe financial hardship, psychiatric detention, and loss of homes.
When stripped bare of any alleged association or applicability to law, the pseudolaw doctrine stands naked as the political movement it really is. Although it contains anarchist elements, the ideals expressed are purely political, not legal, and ultimately, the law courts are not the venue for political change.
Video: Ariel Bogle presents an accurate portrayal of the evolution of pseudolaw concepts in Australia, in various interviews regarding her book “Conspiracy Nation“. Professors Harry Hobbs, Joe McIntyre and David Heilpern talk about Robert Sudy’s Freeman Delusion website, with references from Dr Donald Netolitzky KC, (Canada) Dr Steve Young, (New Zealand) and Dr Michael Eburn (Australia).
2024:
The Internationalisation of Pseudolaw:
Freeman Delusion referenced in the UNSW Law Journal
This website was first mentioned in Canada’s Alberta Law Journal in Dr Donald Netolitzky KC‘s trilogy “History of the Organized Pseudolegal Commercial Argument Phenomenon in Canada” in The Dead Sleep Quiet; Part II [2023] ALR 60(3) and New Hosts for an Old Disease; Part III [2023] ALR 60(4). Dr Donald Netolitzky KC is Complex Litigant Management Counsel for the Alberta Court of King’s Bench, and was instrumental in the 2012 Meads v Meads decision with Associate Chief Justice John Rooke, which is widely cited in courts around the world.
Sourced from the thousands of decisions compiled in this encyclopedia spanning 40 years of Australian pseudolaw argumentation, professors Harry Hobbs, Stephen Young and Joe McIntyre published a groundbreaking, first ever meta-analysis of 200 cases in the University of New South Wales Law Journal: “The Internationalisation of Pseudolaw: The Growth of Sovereign Citizen Arguments in Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand” [2024] UNSWLJ 47(1) which details much of the common Australian pseudolaw argumentation, the origins, the evolution, and the recent growth of the phenomenon, which for the last few years (even when it was forthcoming) is routinely cited by the appellate courts in every Australian state.
Identically, the authors previous New Zealand Law Journal article: “The growth of pseudolaw and sovereign citizens in Aotearoa New Zealand courts” [2023] NZLJ 6) is regularly referred to as an authoritative text on pseudolaw by the New Zealand High Court and other appellate courts.
In both articles, the authors highlight my own experiences with the courts as an example of competent responses to pseudolaw, an example which is now included as a guide for magistrates in section 10 of the Judicial Commission of New South Wales 2024 Equality before the Law Bench Book, encouraging courts to recognise that many adherents “are not definitionally mala fides actors” but those who “hold sincere but misinformed beliefs” and therefore to “respond to pseudolaw by making substantive and informed rebuttals, particularly of strawman arguments” with “a more structured form of engagement, instead of the mockery and minimalisation that may initially seem justified.”
Hobbs, McIntyre, Young, et al: “Pseudolaw and Sovereign Citizens“.
Video: Assorted media and podcast extracts, with a brief written history of the evolution of Robert Sudy’s Freeman Delusion website. Video: 7 News, Tom Tanuki. Audio: Joel Hill, Peter Hoysted, Sos and Sandi, Kosta Lucas. Print: Quatloos, Wikipedia, Geraldine Grace, Australian Citizens Party, AAP FactCheck, The Echo, ABC News, The Australian, SBS The Feed.
The website INDEX is comprised of FIVE PARTS:
- (Part 1) Australian Pseudolaw Argumentation
- (Part 2) The Evolution of the Pseudolaw Phenomenon
- (Part 3) Case Law Archives
- (Part 4) More Pseudolaw Resources
- (Part 5) Freeman Delusion Blog and Media
eBooks
The 10-page PDF draft version of Australian Pseudolaw Argumentation (447KB) is a brief overview of the nuances of the 100 most commonly used individual Australian pseudolaw motifs, with a hyperlink for an expanded, referenced explanation of each individual concept in individual pdf format documents. You can download this small pdf document on your phone, as a handy index of links to these many larger, separate reference materials.
Download 10-page eBook:
Australian Pseudolaw Argumentation
A comprehensive, expanded, much larger document is also available for download, compiling all of the individual 100 reference documents into one single 580-page document, (29,389KB) with the former hyperlinks becoming bookmarks in the same document. This document is best downloaded via a desktop.
Download 580-page eBook:
Australian Pseudolaw Argumentation
The forthcoming final edition of this now extended text, will take into explanatory footnotes all of the referenced material and links in each of the subject matter articles, converting it into a 80-page stand-alone document with around 1000 embedded hyperlinks to documents on Australia’s leading database of pseudolaw-specific Australian case law and academic literature.
Download: The Existential Duality
In their original First Nations context, the existential dualities of identity, language, law, and nation reflect a profound resistance to colonial legal fictions, rooted in communal, land-based sovereignty and oral traditions. The maritime law metaphor and Crown as a corporate sole capture the alienating imposition of “paper” identities, which First Nations resisted through reclaiming tribal names, languages, and customary law. Pseudolaw groups, particularly from the 1970s onward, appropriated these concepts, reinterpreting them through an individualist, anti-government lens. The Posse Comitatus and subsequent movements like Freeman-on-the-Land and Australian pseudolaw groups transformed the communal, spiritual struggle into an abstract pursuit of pre-statutory sovereignty, often infused with commercial and constitutional motifs.
This appropriation, while drawing ideological inspiration from First Nations’ anti colonial resistance, dilutes its cultural and spiritual depth, shifting the focus from collective ties to country to individual legal immunity. The “magic spell” hypothesis illuminates why both groups respond to legalese’s complexity, but their approaches differ: First Nations experience it as a foreign, oppressive system, while pseudolaw mimics it to subvert state authority. The global parallels with Māori, Native American, and Canadian First Nations suggest a broader anti-colonial influence on pseudolaw’s evolution, uniting diverse struggles under a shared critique of imposed legal fictions. This synthesis reveals a complex interplay of resistance, appropriation, and reinterpretation, highlighting the enduring power of existential duality as a framework for challenging state authority.
Please note: Some references and media pieces contained in this encyclopedia use the US term “sovereign citizens” to describe pseudolaw adherents in Australia. Personally, I believe this is an unfortunate characterisation and academically incorrect, based in a misunderstanding of the nuances of the pseudolaw phenomenon and the varying objectives and populations within it. As a rule, I have long refused to use this nomenclature when referring to adherents and groups in Australia.
Journalists, and even most legal academics, do not understand the difference between US “sovereign citizen” pseudolaw, and domestic Australian pseudolaw. They just insist on labelling all pseudolaw adherents “sovereign citizens” for sensationalization, despite the provable fact most Australian arguments completely outdate the US phenomenon. Some examples can be found in Abe Saffron’s 1953 arguments related to the seal used on NSW legislation that contended all government is invalid and without power, which was two decades before the Posse Comitatus was formed by William Potter Gale, and the first “strawman duality” argument, claiming the existence of another form of legal status (other than an Australian Citizen) that was immune to Australian law, which came before the High Court in Isabella Coe’s case in 1979.
This is dangerous propaganda I have always opposed. It falsely leads the public to believe anyone challenging the validity of certain laws are either part of some dangerous US far-right group with links to terrorism, or stupid “cookers” that need ridiculing, as an intentional strategy to underestimate or disregard the arguments themselves, no matter if they did actually contain a hint of legal merit.
Someone claiming that a certain law is invalid or doesn’t apply to them, does not necessarily make them a pseudolaw adherent. Even Latham CJ stated in the High Court in 1942 that a “pretended law made in excess of power is not and never has been a law at all” and “anybody in the country is entitled to disregard it”, regardless of whether they have a court decision in their favour or not.
The very first mention of the term “sovereign citizen” was in the speeches and materials of William Potter Gale in 1982, and there was a marked increase in the use of the term among US pseudolaw adherents between 1992 and 1995, when their argumentation had evolved further.
Australia had its own form of pseudolaw that developed independently from the US phenomenon. As far back as 1983, Alan Skyring claimed that provisions of the Income Tax Assessment Act 1936 violated property rights secured by Magna Carta, and by the 1990’s there was a whole “concealed colony” ideology that contended Australia became a sovereign nation with our acceptance into the League of Nations in 1919, and therefore the continued use of UK enactments such as the Commonwealth and State constitutions contravened various provisions of international law.
Despite the cross-contamination of foreign pseudolaw concepts that began in the 2000’s, the bulk of Australian pseudolaw argumentation existing today relate to the divisibility of the Crown and the changes in relations with the United Kingdom, which likewise have absolutely no antecedent in US or even Canadian pseudolaw, they are entirely homegrown.
“Do sovereign citizens’ claims have any legal basis?”
Comedian Lou wall does a deep dive with guest magistrate David Heilpern. 
Social Media
I often engage in the Facebook group “Are Council Rates Legal?“.
Feel free to join the group for posts and comments.
References
Robert Sudy – Australian OPCA Mythbuster (2017) Quatloos!
“He describes himself as a true believer who eventually saw the light and moved on to the bright side. The book isn’t for the faint-hearted. It’s almost 500 pages and being continually updated. It makes Meads v Meads seem like a brochure.”
Australian Paralegal Foundation (2017)
“This E-Book is the most comprehensive guide to the delusion that some people call “Freeman” or “Sovereign” or the countless other names that the Courts have characterized as Pseudo Legal (stuff that sounds like it is legal talk but more accurately described as gibberish) that collectively have been labelled OPCA Litigants. This book will help you understand the myths and break it down in simple English why these groups exist and how they are misleading people into harm.”
Commonwealth of Australia (US securities entity) Wikipedia
Australia is not a corporation, it’s a corporate state; Australian Citizens Party
Sovereign Risk; Focus ABC Radio Perth
Pseudo-legal ideas and legal rights; Geraldine Grace
Navigating through laws around business lockdowns; Echo
Does a constitutional clause ban vaccine mandates in Australia? AAP FactCheck
Sovereign Citizen OPCA Law Skool with Rob Sudy; The Conditional Release Program Episode 45
COVID-19 is accelerating the rise of conspiracy and sovereign citizen movements in Australia; ABC News
Tom Tanuki; Aussie sovereign citizens Part 1
Tom Tanuki; Aussie sovereign citizens Part 2
Police shooting sparks sov-cit expert to warn of rising ‘cult’ danger; The Australian – Paywall free
Robert says being a sovereign citizen is like having a ‘mind virus’. It’s a movement the pseudo-law expert knows well; SBS The Feed
Former Magistrate David Heilpern; The Ultimate ‘ME’ Movement; The Echo
Professor Michael Eburn; Newstex interview
David Harvey (retired NZ District Court Judge) Pseudolaw
Northern Rivers Times: “How trying to dodge a traffic fine could land you in jail“.
McIntyre, Bray, Crichton, Hobbs, O’Neill, Perrett and Young: “The Rise of Pseudolaw in South Australia: An Empirical Analysis of the Emergence and Impact of Pseudolaw on South Australia’s Courts“.
Hobbs, McIntyre, Young, et al: “Pseudolaw and Sovereign Citizens“.
UNSW: “How sovereign citizen claims fail but keep clogging courts“.
“Former NSW Magistrate David Heilpern once spent three and a half hours considering arguments presented by Robert Sudy, who was in court for traffic offences. Mr Sudy later told researchers that the magistrate’s empathy and knowledge of pseudolegal arguments impressed him.
Mr Sudy now runs the most significant database tracking pseudolaw in Australia and advocates against the practice, says A/Prof. Hobbs. His work serves to protect people not only from financial losses but also from the risk of criminal conviction, involuntary psychiatric care, home repossession, and family estrangement.”
Ariel Bogle and Cam Wilson: “Conspiracy Nation: Exposing the dangerous world of Australian conspiracy theories”
Inside Story: “The stories we tell about ourselves“.
“In their final chapters, the authors turn to resistance. Robert Sudy, a former pseudolaw adherent introduced earlier in the book, discusses his attempt to identify and defuse all pseudolaw in Australia.
Bogle and Wilson claim that pseudolaw “feels like the most Australian of all the conspiracy theories we looked at in this book.” Not only is “our system of justice and its fraying ties to the United Kingdom’s centuries of legal history reflected back at you” but “pseudolaw is obsessed with the idea that an outside body has taken over an existing culture. In Australia, that’s our history.”
SMH: “I’ve spent years investigating ‘sovereign citizens’. Here’s what I learnt“.
“Robert Sudy is a former pseudolaw adherent who now runs Australia’s most influential online database tracking pseudolaw concepts and figures, The Freeman Delusion. He told us about how he was drawn into pseudolegal arguments while researching online about how to contest driving charges. After he tried some of these claims in court, the magistrate that day carefully and respectfully rebuffed his arguments and recommended some further reading.
Sudy was ultimately responsible for deciding to take the suggestion and go on a journey that ended with him disavowing pseudolaw, but it was a quirk of fate that helped set him along that path. The magistrate had several hearings rescheduled, leaving him with an unusual amount of time to meaningfully engage with Sudy.
It’s one thing to tell the judges, lawyers, council workers and police officers who have regular professional interactions with pseudolaw adherents to be empathetic and patient. The bigger issue is that our legal system is not designed or resourced to give workers the space and grace to offer people an off-ramp from these beliefs.”
“Adventure guide, father and legal scholar Robert Sudy has seen all the complex, hopeless arguments made by Australia’s pseudolaw adherents change over time. Sudy has become one of Australia’s most thorough chroniclers of pseudolaw via his website Freeman Delusion.
He arrived at the project after he was charged with driving offences in 2012, and when he looked online for ways to contest them, he found a whole world of arguments that suggested Australian law was hopelessly corrupted. Sudy didn’t have a license and he came across arguments online that suggested he didn’t need one. He’d grown up as a Seventh Day Adventist for a time, and largely off-grid. He is fluent in the language of Christian prophecy. He was primed, he feels, to accept these claims that a conspiracy was manifesting itself through corrupt rules, corrupt cops, corrupt courts.
As his court date approached, Sudy remembers feeling that it was his responsibility not to be tricked by the so-called law and its foot soldiers. As he prepared for his case, he examined material from various pseudolaw gurus. He found articles about how traffic laws weren’t in the constitution. He wrote dozens of letters to Australian officials pleading his case. His letters all told them the same thing: “I’m not bound to your laws, I’m now cutting all contracts. And just to make sure, I also did the same for my kids.”
When he turned up in court, then-magistrate David Heilpern patiently explained the flaws in his argument. It was his lack of dismissiveness that made Sudy think twice. “He took the time to say, this is your belief, but this is the way the law sees it,” he says. “I found that his patience in court, it removed a lot of barriers for me. I entered the court thinking that it was a ship, and that somebody was trying to trick me by my all-capitals name,” he remembers, referring to the pseudolaw belief that a name in all-caps is a strawman identity. “All those paranoid concepts that I’d been fed, they seemed to diminish by his own demeanour, the way he handled the case.”
Heilpern remembers his encounter in court with Sudy very well. It was a day when he had five or six hearings, but they mostly fell over. That meant he had the time to talk to Sudy.
“I remember he had one of his kids in court, who he was homeschooling,” Heilpern says. “If all of those five hearings had run, I would not have had the time or space to deal with him in a ‘cult dusting’ way.” Sudy was clearly smart, Heilpern recalls, and he got it: “Of course, in the end, he got it and he now runs probably the best website of its kind in the world.”
“Bottom line is, I can’t think of another conspiracy theory… that has such a dangerous edge in Australia.” Sudy says he approached NSW Police back in 2015 about the growing numbers of pseudolaw adherents. “I said, mate, there’s a bad problem here in New South Wales. There’s thousands and thousands of these pseudolaw adherents and there are thousands more being currently influenced,” he recalls. “All it takes is some kind of social crisis.”
In his view, pseudolaw is not a left or right thing. It’s politically agnostic. “The main characteristic that makes people come to these concepts is an anti-authoritarian underlying notion or philosophy,” Sudy says. “Some sort of problem they’ve had with police or the courts in the past, that they’ve switched off and gone, “they’re all corrupt”. . . that makes them very susceptible.”
Real Left: “From Deceit to Delusion: How Ruling Class Lies Fuel the Sovereign Citizen Trap“:
“The most comprehensive resource on pseudolaw in Australia — and one respected by the legal profession — is Robert Sudy’s Freeman Delusion website. Sudy is a former believer himself, which gives him both sympathy for those caught in the OPCA trap and deep insight into how it works. He has repeatedly called on authorities to do more to help people escape these beliefs, but those appeals have mostly been ignored.
Sudy is widely regarded as the leading expert on the subject. He rejects the term “sovereign citizen,” preferring Organised Pseudolegal Commercial Argument (OPCA), which he argues better describes the phenomenon. On his site, he explains why Australian pseudolaw developed somewhat separately from its U.S. counterpart, and why precision in language matters.
Much of his material is behind a paywall, but for good reason — the site is meticulously researched and worth supporting. If you want reliable information about myths circulating in the “freedom” space, such as claims that “Australia is a corporation” or debates around the red ensign flag, even a short-term membership is well worth it.”
Comments:
Stuart Watson
“G’day Rob, I came across your web presence this week when investigating that Romley Stover character. I am impressed by your clearly correct legal knowledge and analysis, as well as your amazing and credible upbringing. Truly impressive critical thinking, and application of both logic and the rules of our legal system, as well as awesomely dismissive expletives to describe those characters. I’ve not seen such well composed legal argument (well compilation and analysis of legal precedent to be sure) AND hilarious and appropriate use of expletives delivered together in all my legal experience. At this point I should note that I was admitted to the Qld Supreme Court in 2001 and hold a valid principal practicing certificate from Qld Law Society. I am the principal of Townsville firm NQ Legal and a lecturer in environmental law for JCU and aspire to be somewhat of an independent lawyer. I truly salute you Sir for your depth of research, critical and logical thinking in this realm otherwise occupied by OPCAs and lawyers. All the best.”
Chris Baker
“I came across your site today. I am a solicitor and have practiced law in Australia and the UK for the past 25 years. On a sadly too frequent basis I receive messages from people referring me to the utter rot that groups promote on the internet – with their pseudo legal BS. I just wanted to say that I admire the significant amount of work that you put in to challenging the conspiracy theories and utter nonsense spread by these groups. Pulling together what you have is no small feat.”
Geraldine Johns-Putra
“Dear Robert, I am an Australian lawyer, first admitted in Victoria about 23 years ago. I am working more these days in areas that touch on human rights, via my niche law practice in Melbourne. I have come across these OPCA arguments over the years but my work is requiring me to become better acquainted with them. Your diligence, meticulous research and well-reasoned conclusions have made it so easy for me to trawl through the many and varied facets of the entire movement and find appropriate rebuttals to provide the people I meet who are attracted to it. They are in the main well-meaning and peace-loving people but they are being horribly misled. These ideas are giving them false hope and potentially harming them and their families. Thank you for your dedication and public service. Sincerely, Geraldine.”
Jane Glover
“I often recommend this book and post linked excerpts from it, in response to pseudolegal statements i see being spouted to unsuspecting people. Though far from being an expert myself, Rob Sudy’s e-book has given me valuable tools enabling me to identify many such OPCA misconceptions and has provided reliable access to all the relevant proven facts, to refute them and to hopefully help some people to avoid becoming entrapped by useless pseudolaw beliefs. I highly recommend the e-book Freeman Delusion: a fully referenced e-book by Rob Sudy, to any seekers (layperson &/or professional) of logic and facts regarding this Consensus Legal Reality we live in. Much healthier for ones mind and wallet, than becoming emotionally trapped into believing cult-like delusions and illogical false-hopes from some OPCA ‘alternate pseudolaw dimension’. Delusions, with an epic (but very avoidable) legal failure rate, in this current functioning reality.”
Steve Prickle Clancy
“I often pass on and share your information. Share your page and now this website. For what it may be worth your facts have helped my sanity enormously while I am dealing with people that have drunk the cordial. And I would like to take this opportunity to say thank you.“
ODDemocracy AU
“Hi Rob. Your work has been invaluable to me in trying to stop the spread of these dangerous ideas on twitter. Wish you were there so that I could call on you for help sometimes!”
Steven Zyskowski
“Thanks for your fantastic compilation of research!”
Nic Faulkner
“… an extremely well written, documented and factual analysis of the Freeman(sovereign citizen) ‘delusion’. I found Rob Sudy’s work here quite a mastery on all things pseudolegal. Full on read, which may make it difficult for some to even start. However, his indexation of each chapter allows people the time they may need to take it all in. Brilliant, something I had though about writing, but this leaves my research and writing ability a long way off… I suggested at least a PhD or Masters. He is quite humble about it all. Great work…”
Tim Prater
“I’ve had the pleasure of watching Rob’s research over the last 5 years or so. He has done an almighty job on his ebook free to all. Its sad there is a group out there that have targeted his work for years but they never ever beat him in a debate on the legals. Man should get a degree and earn some bucks from his knowledge but he chooses an alternative lifestyle.”
Wayne Soles
“It’s a well researched and presented document I have used it as source a number of times and not found it wanting…”
Asher
“Hey Rob! A few days ago I stumbled upon your Freeman Delusion WordPress.
I’d initially found just one of the sections of your website and was completely convinced that you were an Aus law professor. I can’t tell you how shocked and awe-struck I was when I went to the homepage and discovered how off my assumption was. I’m a second year law student and my understanding of the law is probably at best 1/10th of yours. But even beyond your stellar understanding of the law, I am so amazed and grateful for your dedication and patience. I’m positive you’ve been encouraged by many people to study law formally, and I think I recall seeing on your website that this might not be of interest to you, but there is a lot that you can contribute in this area. I’ve recently seen some law professionals suggesting that someone does a PhD on the freeman movement, and I can’t think of a better candidate than you. I feel a little funky encouraging a path of formal education, because I think far too much capital is placed on it. But at the same time, I really believe that we’re better off when people like you are engaged in the legal profession. Regardless of the direction you choose to go in with all of this knowledge, I just wanted to say thanks for all of your hard work.”
Some comments from my detractors:
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