Constitutional antidote to counterfeit courts

How to recognise and remedy jurisdictional fraud in the magistrates’ system

Over the weekend, I put 28 Freedom of Information Act responses through AI to squeeze out the “juice” on ghost court naming and Local Justice Areas. The resulting long-form analysis will feed into my Part 8 civil skeleton argument against the counterfeit court that claims to have convicted me — without offering a shred of proof of its own lawful constitution.

I’ve boiled that work down into a shorter, reusable list for anyone else facing the same fraud and injustice. The moment I asked why the court name on my summons wasn’t in the official directory — and got a mocking response — I knew the rot ran deep. Hopefully this background work will give others a shortcut to finding a remedy that I was denied.

We are the constitutional cleanup crew. It’s dirty work, but someone has to do it.

Here’s the summary you can drop straight into your own AI engine.

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A lawful magistrates’ court exists only if constituted by statute (Courts Act 2003, ss.1 and 30). Without proof of lawful creation, it has no jurisdiction and any proceeding is void.

When replaced with fictional names, branding devices, or mere logos, the link between authority and lawful origin is severed. Such bodies are unaccountable, lack a lawful person to answer claims, and reduce rights to abstractions.

A “court” existing only in administrative imagination has no more authority than a private club. Accepting such devices is not a minor flaw but a structural breach, allowing any logo or IT system to masquerade as a court and making all other safeguards meaningless.

1. Lawful Constitution Is Non-Optional

A magistrates’ court exists only if constituted by statute (Courts Act 2003, ss.1 and 30). Without this lawful genesis, it has no jurisdiction and any proceeding is void ab initio. Jurisdiction is not an administrative convenience — it is a constitutional requirement.

2. Fiction Without Foundation Is Void

Courts are legal constructs, not physical objects. Their existence must be traceable to an act of lawful creation. Without this, they are no more than branding devices or IT labels — functionally indistinguishable from a private club — and cannot compel obedience.

3. The State Bears the Burden of Proof

When challenged, the state must prove the lawful constitution of the tribunal. Failure to do so voids the proceeding and restores the defendant’s position before it began. This is a constitutional duty, not a courtesy.

4. Truth in the Court Name

The heading on a summons is an irrevocable assertion of lawful existence. If the named court does not exist in law, the entire process collapses. Without this discipline, the term “Magistrates’ Court” becomes meaningless.

5. No Right Without Remedy

A “ghost court” that cannot be sued or held to account cannot bind the citizen. Rights without enforceable remedies are illusions; the balance of right and duty vanishes when the tribunal is immune to challenge.

6. Two Indistinguishable Species of Court

Allowing unconstituted “virtual” courts alongside statutory ones destroys legal certainty. Defendants cannot know which they face — undermining equality before the law and breaching ECHR Art. 6 guarantees of a fair trial and presumption of innocence.

7. Delegation Cannot Create Being

Administrative delegation can transfer duties but not bring a court into legal existence. Only lawful naming under statute does that. Accepting otherwise invites anyone to conjure a “court” and bind citizens without accountability.

8. Administrative Usurpation

When HMCTS substitutes administrative labels for constituted courts, it creates a parallel, unauthorised system. This blurs the judicial–executive boundary, undermining judicial independence and the separation of powers.

9. The National Bench Problem

Unanchored magistrates, interchangeable across the country without attachment to a specific constituted court, dissolve the principle that justice must be dispensed by a known, accountable tribunal.

10. Fluid Identity Destroys Certainty

Ghost courts make jurisdiction malleable — names can change after the fact, making it impossible for citizens to verify lawful authority in advance. This erases the bright line between a judicial act and an administrative fiction.

11. Quo Warranto Must Bite

The ancient safeguard of “by what authority?” means nothing if a court can ignore demands for proof of lawful creation. Failure to prove is fatal; theoretical jurisdiction without evidence is worthless.

12. Erosion of Anisminic Principles

Treating jurisdictional defects as mere “irregularities” reverses the rule that a decision without jurisdiction is a nullity. It replaces proof with presumption and neuters centuries-old safeguards.

13. Blurring Civil–Criminal Boundaries

If entities without standing can initiate legal process, criminal safeguards erode. Civil-style informality seeps into criminal law, diluting protections like the presumption of innocence.

14. Breach of International Obligations

Both ECHR Art. 6 and ICCPR Art. 14 require a tribunal “established by law.” The UK is bound to evidence lawful constitution when challenged. A tribunal that cannot do so is in breach under both regimes.

15. Cultural Drift to Sloppiness

Ghost courts are symptoms of wider procedural collapse: defective notices, missing signatures, absent prosecutorial tests. Treating them as valid entrenches this culture and accelerates the decay of constitutional discipline.

16. Contamination of Precedent

Void decisions allowed to stand poison future case law and administrative systems. Once embedded in precedent, they masquerade as lawful authority and corrupt the legal record.

17. Downstream Chaos

Accepting ghost courts causes practical havoc: inconsistent records, data integrity breaches under UK GDPR, and unclear appeal routes. Citizens can miss deadlines or file in the wrong forum because the originating court cannot be verified.

18. Irreversible Structural Harm

Once normalised, ghost courts have no limiting principle. The precedent can spread to family, immigration, or military tribunals — dissolving the constitutional boundary between lawful and arbitrary power.

19. Recognising the Void Is the Conservative Option

As in Boddington v BTP [1998], defendants may challenge validity at any stage. Acknowledging the void preserves the constitutional framework; denying it accelerates its destruction.