State official pushes extreme "freeman of the bureaucracy" legal theory

A dangerous "sovereign administrator" movement misleads the public into believing the rule of law has been abolished and there are no constraints on legislative or executive power

I have been passed an explosive note from a senior civil servant that exposes the authoritarian mindset now steering the administration of justice. I will return to the text itself shortly. What it articulates, in stark terms, is the HMCTS doctrine on court naming and constitution. Taken to its logical conclusion, it amounts to one of the most extreme and radical agendas in British legal history: the quiet abolition of jurisdiction, courts, the judiciary, remedy, and the rule of law itself. It is the telos of legal positivism and critical theory — a world where no rights precede law, no moral truths bind power, and all public life is reduced to factional control.

The irony is bitter. For years, the state — with help from mouthpieces like the BBC — has smeared anyone who insists that government is constrained by higher principles, inherited rights, or constitutional limits. Invoke the immemorial customs of the realm, Magna Carta’s command that the king be under law, or even the Bill of Rights 1689, and you are dismissed as a crank. The labels come thick and fast: “vexatious litigant,” “anti-authority,” “conspiracy theorist,” “freeman of the land,” “sovereign citizen.” Yet “sovereign citizen” is itself a nonsense term, since citizenship is a dead fiction and sovereignty without an army is moot.

What we are really witnessing is the rise of a new archetype: the “freeman of the bureaucracy.” This mentality asserts that “anything goes, as long as I can claim I was following orders from Parliament — or selectively enough to get away with it.” The sovereign administrator wages narrative war against legal titans like Coke, Blackstone, and Burke, dismissing anyone who aligns with their dissenting tradition as “pseudo-law.” I would prefer to call this extremist rejection of the English constitutional order “fringe.” Unfortunately, it has become mainstream, under the banners of modernisation and efficiency, where checks and balances are steadily eroded and conscience counts for nothing.

My own legal challenge to “ghost courts” is not rooted in pseudo-law or novel theory, but in pure orthodox statute and convention: the Magistrates’ Courts Act 1980, the Courts Act 2003, the Criminal Procedure Rules 2020, and Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights. The last of these is higher law that binds the British state, via its own Human Rights Act 1998. Some readers ask why I do not assert my status as a “living man,” or challenge supposed presumptions of commercial law. The answer is simple: to expose contradictions and moral bankruptcy, one must engage the enemy on its own terrain.

The abolition of jurisdiction

I refer readers back my previous article on the Ministry of Justice’s internal advice to court legal advisors (formerly known as clerks). On pp. 3–4 it states:

Court names have no legal significance. Standard court names and codes were introduced to support computerisation of the criminal justice system. They do not create legal entities.

Imagine you were in commercial law and the state claimed “company names have no legal significance.” That would be a wild assertion. It would be like saying: “It doesn’t matter what organisational name you put as sender on the invoice, just pay up!” Without a named entity, there is no legal body to attach rights and duties to.

The same applies here. If you cannot name the court that is seised of the matter, then the defendant cannot know which lawful tribunal they are bound to, nor can the record be checked against statutory creation. Yet Criminal Procedure Rule 4.7(1)(b) requires that a summons must identify the court, and Article 6 HRA 1998 guarantees a tribunal “established by law.” If names are “surplusage,” both safeguards collapse.

This effectively abolishes jurisdiction itself — the law’s ability to speak with authority from a named source. And once jurisdiction is abolished, so too is the rule of law.

The abolition of courts

In the same document, HMCTS claim that a “court” comes into being whenever magistrates sit. This collapses the distinction between an operational hearing (people gathered in a room) and a tribunal established by law (a named court constituted by statute). The Magistrates’ Courts Act 1980 and the Courts Act 2003 presuppose that proceedings are before such a constituted court, not an ad hoc meeting of justices.

As a computer scientist I know that the logical sequence has to run in this order:

• Intentional semantics — a tribunal established by the Monarch and Parliament that binds all parties to law and delivers outcomes to be entered on the public record.

• Denotational semantics — a summons that names the tribunal (and hence ledger) and states when and where to gather to operationalise its intention.

• Operational semantics — the physical sitting of the bench in a courtroom, with parties present, that enacts the above, resulting in a court order on the named ledger.

HMCTS has collapsed this sequence. Court names now have “no legal meaning” (deprecating denotational semantics), and the juridical intention itself is bypassed. (If they mean nothing, why not drop them entirely?!?) The constitutional bridge between the intention of law and the operation of justice is severed. What remains is not a court of record but an administrative meeting, part of the same trend that reassigns judicial functions such as issuing summonses to staff who have taken no judicial oath.

To treat a meeting of magistrates as a “court” is to abolish the court as a constitutional institution.

A constitutional confession

On 8 October 2024, Siân Jones, Head of Legal and Professional Services at HMCTS, sent an email to a member of the public that reads less like neutral legal advice and more like an apologia for HMCTS’s steady replacement of judicial authority with administrative fiat. It is written in dry, technical language, so at first glance it does not scream “scandal.” But it should.

Within its careful phrasing lies a startling admission: that the safeguards of jurisdiction, courts, remedies, and even the judiciary itself have been hollowed out. First, let me show you the raw text — then we can unpack what it really says.

Dear [REDACTED],

What is the point of your question? You won’t accept anything I say if it doesn’t suit your views.

Parliament has decided, in section 67B of the Courts Act 2003, that HMCTS staff can carry out judicial functions. An Act of Parliament overrides case law, so the decision in Gateshead Justices is effectively obsolete.

If you read that case properly, it actually confirms that a justices’ clerk (not a judge) could issue a summons — the only restriction was that he couldn’t delegate that job to someone else. Since then, Parliament has given justices’ clerks the power to delegate, and the 2003 Act extends that to Heads of Legal Operations.

The standard rule of statutory interpretation is that newer legislation overrides older legislation where they conflict (see Bennion, Bailey & Norbury on Statutory Interpretation). So, if there is a conflict between the Magistrates’ Courts Act 1980 and the Courts Act 2003, the 2003 Act prevails.

As for the 2020 Rules, their explanatory notes don’t say that delegation of judicial functions is barred. They say the opposite: section 67B of the 2003 Act allows rules of court to authorise staff with the right qualifications, authorised by the Lord Chief Justice, to perform judicial functions. Section 67C requires the rule committee to consider rights of reconsideration. But there is no rule committee for civil proceedings in magistrates’ courts, so there is no right of reconsideration there. The criminal rules committee did consider the issue and decided against reconsideration; rights of reconsideration exist only in other courts and tribunals.

Finally, the Justices’ Clerks’ Society has not been disbanded. It has simply been reconstituted and renamed as the Justices’ Legal Advisers and Court Officers’ Service.

Regards,
Siân Jones
Head of Legal and Professional Services, HMCTS

This email undoes the foundational separation of powers under English law. How so?

R v Gateshead Justices ex parte Tesco Stores Ltd [1981] QB 470 confirmed that issuing a summons is a judicial act which must be exercised personally by a justice of the peace, since judicial functions cannot be delegated. The case drew a bright line: clerks could assist administratively, but they could not themselves issue or delegate summonses. In today’s context, that authority is being inverted — HMCTS asserts that clerks and even their delegates may lawfully issue summonses, effectively overturning Gateshead and dissolving the jurisdictional safeguard it established.

By dismissing Gateshead Justices as “obsolete”, Jones denies the existence of jurisdictional limits: only a justice of the peace could issue a summons, and that power could not be delegated. The very guardrails that define jurisdiction, and hence accountability for exercise of coercive power like compelling court attendance under penalty of arrest, are erased. Worse, in this model, a “court” is no longer a tribunal established by law with a bench — it is an office-holder (or their delegate) stamping paperwork. This severs the link between “court as institution” and “court as operation,” turning it into a bureaucratic process.

The abolition of the judiciary

The note bluntly states:

“Parliament has decided, in section 67B of the Courts Act 2003, that HMCTS staff can carry out judicial functions.”

We see the result in practice. In my own case, a summons was rubber-stamped without any personalised case to answer, merely a collective of vehicles parked at various times and places. There was even a ghost complainant — styled as Chief Constable CHIEF CONSTABLE — alongside the ghost courts and ghost justices already identified. Everything is reduced to “computer says guilty, so pay your fine.” Judicial power, which should rest with sworn judges and justices under oath, has been shifted to HMCTS employees — executive staff of the state. At the entry level of justice, the judiciary is hollowed out. Its essential functions have been displaced by bureaucracy.

To let bureaucrats exercise judicial functions is to abolish the judiciary as an independent branch of government.

The abolition of remedy

What happens when judicial functions — once bound by oaths, records, and scrutiny — are reduced to scenes from the dystopian film Brazil, where absolute power is handed to administrators with no right of review? Let’s unpack the legalese.

As for the 2020 Rules, their explanatory notes don’t say that delegation of judicial functions is barred. They say the opposite: section 67B of the 2003 Act allows rules of court to authorise staff with the right qualifications, authorised by the Lord Chief Justice, to perform judicial functions. Section 67C requires the rule committee to consider rights of reconsideration.

In plain English: staff — not judges — can now take on judicial roles. The safeguard that was supposed to balance this power, a right of reconsideration by a judge, never materialised.

But there is no rule committee for civil proceedings in magistrates’ courts, so there is no right of reconsideration there. The criminal rules committee did consider the issue and decided against reconsideration; rights of reconsideration exist only in other courts and tribunals.

The punchline is that the safeguard never existed in the very forums where millions are processed each year for council tax, traffic, and other routine matters. Administrators can issue summonses or determinations, but there is no built-in way for a judge to review or correct them.

What was sold as “efficiency” has become finality without justice: once the bureaucrat stamps the paper, the citizen is left with no remedy. This is the quiet abolition of appeal and review at the entry point of the justice system — precisely where it is most needed.

Delegation without reconsideration is the abolition of remedy: bureaucracy becomes judge, and there is no way back.

The abolition of the rule of law

Now we get to the biggie — the inevitable justification that “I was only obeying orders”. The email states:

“An Act of Parliament overrides case law, so the decision in Gateshead Justices is effectively obsolete.”

Now, imagine Parliament had passed a law on garbage collection that forgot to account for leap years, and a court ruled on whether someone had put their bin out on the “right” day. In that case, of course, Parliament could step in and amend the statute. But that is a far cry from a carte blanche to do whatever it likes.

The doctrine Jones advances goes much further: it dismisses binding precedent — which defined the limits of jurisdiction — and treats statutory fiat alone as enough to conjure jurisdiction out of thin air.

But that’s not where it ends.

“An Act of Parliament overrides case law… If there is a conflict between the Magistrates’ Courts Act 1980 and the Courts Act 2003, the 2003 Act prevails.”

This is pure legal positivism: Parliament may sweep aside precedent, common-law safeguards, even constitutional limits. It denies that any higher principle can restrain legislative will — the very opposite of the rule of law. The doctrine boils down to this: so long as it is “new, and not yet struck down by a senior or international court,” then anything goes.

When Parliament claims the power to sweep aside precedent at will, the rule of law is abolished and legislative dictatorship takes its place.

Mens rea of institutional malfeasance

What makes this email particularly explosive is not its rude opening line, nor even its near-seditious disregard for constitutional law. The “tell” is that it was recalled almost immediately after being sent — a rare use of an email protocol function that only happens when the sender realises they have said too much. Fortunately, the recipient had already noted its contents. 😎

It is never the crime that destroys an institution, but the cover-up. And HMCTS has plenty to hide: “courts” with no instrument of creation, no consistent name to identify them, and no remedy when their jurisdiction is challenged. Local Justice Areas may have been abolished in principle, but the system cannot “move on” in practice — because any genuine reform would only highlight the unlawful gaps in how it has been operating all along.

This is not only exposing the public to systemic miscarriages of justice; it is leading staff themselves into complicity. The email closes with a telling reassurance:

Finally, the Justices’ Clerks’ Society has not been disbanded. It has simply been reconstituted and renamed as the Justices’ Legal Advisers and Court Officers’ Service.

The author — who is also the secretary of that body — effectively admits that what passes for independent professional oversight is simply a renamed branch of the Ministry of Justice. The circularity is striking: HMCTS writes the guidance, HMCTS enforces it, and HMCTS shields it from scrutiny. What is dressed up as professional independence is nothing more than institutional self-protection, and that is the very definition of malfeasance.

A danger to insiders, not just the people

Back-office staff are now being bound to policies that amount to a kind of “freeman of the bureaucracy” ideology, wholly detached from English legal tradition. It invites them to act as “sovereign administrators” — as if the fundamental principles of jurisdiction, courts, and due process cease to matter once the computer is switched on. This is not reform; it is jurisprudential extremism disguised as modernisation. Worse still, it unfairly places ordinary civil servants in legal peril.

When I began exposing these “ghost courts,” it was in the narrow context of my own motoring case. My working assumption was that a constitutional challenge would reveal flaws in the Single Justice Procedure and shield the public from revenue enforcement dressed up as law. What I have since uncovered is more serious: the knowing operation of void courts under fraudulent names, an ultra vires practice that carries consequences reaching as far as lifetime imprisonment. This is not a threat — it is the natural outcome of persisting in illegality.

My hope is that there are still “adults in the room” within the system who quietly recognise that a face-saving way out must be found before complete collapse — and before staff themselves are exposed to criminal liability. My role is to bring the issue into the light, build a case history, and lay the foundation for judicial review. The work of genuine reform must come from within, but reformers now have a strong evidential base for a hard reset of the Single Justice Procedure.

The rot has gone so far that the very essence of law is being corrupted.

Please act accordingly.