Verba artis ex arte — the words of a craft are to be understood according to the craft.
Introduction
Language is the mechanism of law. Every right, every obligation, every power to compel or to punish is expressed in words. It follows that whoever controls the definition of words controls the law itself — and, by extension, controls those subject to it.
Over the past two centuries, a body of language has developed in common law jurisdictions that looks like English, reads like English, and is presented to ordinary men and women as if it were English, but which operates by entirely different rules. Words that have carried settled meanings in ordinary usage for centuries have been quietly redefined in statutes, in court rules, and in law dictionaries in ways that strip the ordinary man or woman of the protections those words would otherwise carry.
This is not a conspiracy theory. It is a documented feature of the legal system, observable in primary sources, acknowledged by courts, and confirmed by the very dictionaries that the legal profession itself publishes and relies upon.
The Mechanism: Statutory Definition
The first and most pervasive mechanism is statutory definition. An Act of Parliament may take any word and define it to mean something other than – or in addition to – what it means in ordinary English. Once that definition is inserted, every use of that word in that Act carries the statutory meaning, not the plain one, regardless of what a man or woman reading it would naturally understand.
The Acts Interpretation Act 1901 (Cth) itself operates this way. Section 2B defines terms used across Commonwealth legislation. The definition of “person” in that section includes “a body politic or body corporate as well as an individual.” This is not a refinement of the ordinary meaning. It is an expansion that places a living man or woman in the same legal category as a corporation – a legal fiction with no flesh, no conscience, and no rights at natural law.
The significance of this is not academic. When a statute imposes an obligation on a “person,” the man or woman reading it assumes it is speaking to him or her as a human being. In the statutory framework, it is speaking to an entity that may be a corporation, a government body, or a legal fiction bearing, what appears to be, his or her name in capitalised or a compound form. The man or woman and the “person” may or may not be the same thing depending on whether the man or woman has, knowingly or unknowingly, accepted the role the statute assigns.
Black’s Law Dictionary and the Parallel Vocabulary
Black’s Law Dictionary, first published in 1891 by Henry Campbell Black and now in its twelfth edition, is the primary reference dictionary of the American legal profession and is widely cited in Australian courts. It is not an ordinary English dictionary. It is a dictionary of legal terms of art, and its definitions frequently diverge sharply from ordinary English in ways that are material to the rights of those who deal with the legal system.
Consider the word “understand.” In ordinary English it means to comprehend, to grasp the meaning of. In a legal context, particularly in a court proceeding, to ask a man or woman “do you understand the charge?” is not merely asking whether he or she comprehends it. At law, “understand” derives from “under” and “stand” – to stand under, that is, to stand under the jurisdiction of the authority putting the question. A man who answers “yes, I understand” in a court proceeding may be taken to have acknowledged the jurisdiction of that court over him. Courts do not advertise this. The question is framed in the language of ordinary comprehension while carrying a legal consequence of jurisdictional submission.
This is one example among many. The pattern is consistent.
“Person” – The Central Deception
No word has been more consequentially redefined than “person.” In ordinary English, a person is a human being. In law, “person” has meant something quite different for a very long time.
Bouvier’s Law Dictionary (1856 edition) — one of the oldest and most cited American law dictionaries – defines “person” as follows: “In law, man and person are not exactly synonymous terms. Any human being is a man, whether he be a member of society or not, whatever may be his age, sex, or condition; but a person is a man considered according to the rank he holds in society, with all the rights to which the place he holds entitles him, and the duties which it imposes.”
The 1856 Bouvier definition acknowledges the distinction between a man and a person. By the time later editions and Black’s Law Dictionary developed, “person” had been expanded further to include corporations, bodies politic, and other artificial legal entities. The word came to describe a role or a legal mask, not a human being.
The practical consequence is this: when a statute creates an obligation on “persons,” it is not necessarily creating an obligation on men and women as such. It is creating an obligation on those who occupy the legal role of “person” within the statutory framework. A man or woman who does not occupy that role – or who declines to accept it – stands in a different legal position. Courts have been extremely reluctant to accept this argument in practice, but the textual basis for it sits squarely in the law dictionaries the legal profession itself uses.
“Individual” – Not What It Appears
Similarly, “individual” appears in many statutes as if it is simply another word for a human being. In the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997 (Cth) and related Commonwealth revenue legislation, “individual” is a defined term of art meaning a natural person as distinct from a company – but “natural person” itself is a term of art, referring to a person recognised by law as having legal personality, rather than to a man or woman by reason of being alive and human. The circularity is deliberate. Each definition points back to another defined term, and the defined terms together form a closed system that a man or woman enters unknowingly simply by responding to correspondence addressed to the name in capital letters on a tax assessment.
Spelling and Capitalisation
The use of capitalisation is not merely a typographic convention in legal documents. In law, a name in full capitals – JOHN HENRY DOE – represents a legal entity, a corporation or a debtor or a defendant in the administrative or commercial system. A similar name in upper and lower case – John Henry – represents the man. The difference is not acknowledged in ordinary correspondence from government agencies, from courts, or from councils. Documents addressed to JOHN HENRY DOE in capitals are addressed to a legal fiction. The man of flesh and blood is invited to respond, and in responding, to step into the role of the legal fiction and accept its obligations.
This is not speculation. It is grounded in the way court documents are formally titled, the way birth certificates are issued (a compound of given name plus family name, often in capitals, identifying the registration of the birth event as a commercial record), and the way that case law distinguishes between a defendant in his or her “personal” capacity – that is, in the role of the legal person – and the man or woman standing in court.
Bouvier’s Law Dictionary (1914 edition) under “person” notes: “In practice, the word is applied to artificial as well as to natural persons.” The word “artificial” confirms that a “person” need not be a human being at all.
“Shall” and “May” – The False Imperative
Statutory drafting in Australia uses “shall” to impose a mandatory obligation and “may” to confer a discretion. This distinction is well understood by lawyers. It is not well understood by ordinary men and women, who read “shall” and “may” as synonyms or as degrees of politeness. The practical consequence is that statutory notices and demands addressed to men and women frequently use language that imposes what appears to be an absolute requirement – “you shall” – where the actual legal position may be more qualified, or conversely use “may” where the drafter intends a practical compulsion backed by penalties.
Local government correspondence in particular routinely uses imperative language – ” you are the owner”, “you must,” “you are required to,” “failure to comply will result in” – without identifying the specific statutory provision that creates the obligation. The language of command is used without the legal foundation that alone could justify it.
“Resident,” “Inhabitant,” and “Ratepayer”
These three words, as used in local government legislation, carry meanings that are not self-evident. A “resident” in ordinary English is a man or woman who lives somewhere. In the statutory framework of local government, “resident” is a defined status carrying obligations – including liability to rates – that attach to the legal fiction of residency, not merely to the fact of living in a place.
“Ratepayer” is even more consequential. To accept the description “ratepayer” is to accept that one owes rates – that the obligation exists and that one is the obligor. A man or woman who responds to a rates notice addressed to “the ratepayer” and identifies himself or herself as such has, in practical terms, conceded the very question that is in issue: whether the obligation exists and whether it applies to him or her.
The Real Property Trap: “Owner” and “Occupier”
In the Local Government Act 1995 (WA) and equivalent New South Wales and all State and Territory legislation, rates are imposed on the “owner” or “occupier” of “rateable land.” Each of these three words is defined. “Owner” does not mean the holder of the fee simple in the ordinary sense. It means the person named in the rate record as owner – a circular definition that makes the administrative record the determinant of the obligation, not the underlying property right. A man who is the holder of a Crown grant fee simple is not automatically the “owner” within the statute unless he has been entered into the rate record in that capacity.
The Crown grant itself is not a rate record. The fee simple it conveys exists at common law independent of any rate record. The council’s administrative system and the common law fee simple are two parallel frameworks, and the council’s framework only captures a man if he steps into it.
The Courts’ Own Language
Courts conduct their proceedings in a language that is English in appearance but legal in operation. The word “plaintiff” does not mean the man who was wronged. It means the party in the legal action who carries that procedural role. The word “defendant” does not mean the man accused. It means the party assigned that role by the court process. A man who responds to a summons and appears as “defendant” has accepted a role in a proceeding that was designed by, and operates for the benefit of, the system that issued the summons.
The Latin maxim qui tacet consentire videtur – he who is silent appears to consent – is actively applied in court proceedings. A man who stands silent when his name is called, or who answers to a name called in the court, or who accepts documents addressed to a capitalised compound title (“name”), is taken to have consented to the jurisdiction and to the role assigned to him. The mechanism operates silently. No officer of the court will tell a man that answering to his name is an act of jurisdictional submission.
The Pattern
The pattern across all of these examples is consistent. Words with settled plain English meanings are redefined in legal instruments in ways that either expand their reach to capture men and women who would not otherwise be captured, or contract their meaning in ways that strip protections those words would ordinarily carry. The redefined words are then used in correspondence, notices, summonses, and court documents addressed to ordinary men and women who are expected to respond as if the words carried their plain meanings.
Whether this pattern reflects coordinated design or the accumulated effect of a legal profession that drafts legislation to serve those who retain it and courts it from them, the observable effect is the same: ordinary men and women are consistently disadvantaged by their own language, used against them with meanings they were never told had changed.
What a Man or Woman Can Do
The beginning of a remedy is recognition. A man or woman who understands that legal English is a technical language – a language of art, as Bouvier puts it – is no longer operating at the disadvantage of one who does not. From that understanding flow practical steps: requiring every demand to identify the specific statutory provision that creates the obligation; declining to accept characterisations such as “ratepayer,” “defendant,” or “person” without reservation; ensuring that responses to legal correspondence are made without conceding the premises embedded in the questions asked.
A powerful and practical tool in this regard is a Terms of Reference – a document prepared by the man or woman that sets out, in plain English, the meanings he or she assigns to key words in all correspondence he or she issues or responds to. Annexed to every communication sent to a council, court, or statutory body, a Terms of Reference puts the recipient on notice that words are being used in their plain English sense and not in any redefined statutory sense. It places the man or woman’s own definitions on the record before the engagement begins, and requires any recipient who intends to proceed on a different meaning to say so expressly. That single step removes the silent assumption – the assumption that the man or woman has accepted the legal framework’s vocabulary – on which so much of the system’s reach depends.
Ignorantia juris non excusat – ignorance of the law is no excuse. But that maxim cuts both ways. The law is supposed to be knowable. When the language in which the law is expressed is designed to be opaque to those it governs, the maxim becomes an instrument of oppression rather than a principle of fairness.
The remedy begins with knowing what the words actually mean.
Fiat justitia ruat caelum — let justice be done though the heavens fall.
See also: Terms of Reference
… and for matters on foot, example only!
Notice of Withdrawal of Implied Consent, Clarification of Capacity, and Terms of Reference
Matter reference: [Insert court file number or matter description]
Date:
To: The Presiding Officer, [Court name and registry] And to: [Name of opposing party or their solicitor]
Part 1 – Notice
I, John Henry, of the family [surname], a living man, ens reale, hereby give notice of the following.
1. Clarification of capacity
In all prior appearances, correspondence, and filings in this matter, I have responded to documents addressed to JOHN HENRY [SURNAME] and have participated in proceedings without having been informed, and without having understood, that the language, procedures, and characterisations used in those proceedings operated by definitions and rules materially different from those of plain English and common law. I did not at any relevant time knowingly or intentionally consent to the jurisdiction of this court as applied to a statutory legal entity or “person,” nor did I knowingly waive any right at common law.
I am not a legal fiction. I am not a corporation. I am not a statutory “person” as defined in the Acts Interpretation Act 1901 (Cth) s2B or any equivalent provision. I am a living man, and I have at all times appeared and communicated in that capacity, whether or not that capacity was acknowledged by the court or by opposing parties.
2. Withdrawal of any implied consent arising from prior conduct
To the extent that any action taken by me in these proceedings – including answering to a name, filing documents, or responding to correspondence – has been taken or may be taken as constituting consent to jurisdiction over me as a statutory “person” or legal entity, that implied consent is hereby expressly withdrawn. Consent in law requires that it be informed, voluntary, and intentional. I was not informed of the nature of the framework within which I was participating. No informed, voluntary, or intentional consent to statutory jurisdiction was given.
I do not consent to these proceedings being characterised as proceedings against me in a statutory or administrative capacity. I appear as a living man only, by special appearance for the purpose of this notice, without submitting to any jurisdiction not established by competent evidence and due process.
3. Requirement for establishment of jurisdiction
The court is required to establish, by reference to specific lawful authority, the basis on which it exercises jurisdiction over me, John Henry, of the family [surname], a living man. Jurisdiction is not established by the fact that proceedings have been commenced, by prior appearances, or by the filing of documents. The man who appeared in prior proceedings did so without knowledge of the framework being applied. That appearance does not establish jurisdiction over him as a man.
4. Requirement for identification of obligation
The opposing party is required to identify, precisely and by reference to specific statutory provision, the basis on which any obligation is asserted against me as a man. The characterisation of any obligation as attaching to a legal entity or statutory “person” bearing a name similar to mine is not accepted as establishing an obligation against me as a living man.
5. Prior proceedings – the factual record
The facts of this matter have not been heard. The man who appeared in prior proceedings did so in a framework he did not understand, using language that carried meanings he was not told it carried. He engaged with questions as if they were ordinary questions, not knowing that in answering them he was being taken to concede matters of jurisdiction, capacity, and obligation. His facts – the actual facts of what occurred – remain unheard and unrebutted on the merits. He seeks that those facts be placed properly before the court and considered on their substance, without the procedural framework of a game he did not knowingly choose to play.
6. All rights reserved
All rights at common law and natural law are reserved in their entirety. Nothing in this notice, and nothing in any prior conduct in these proceedings, is to be taken as a waiver of any right. The right to contest jurisdiction, to require proof of any asserted obligation, to have the facts of the matter properly heard, and to the protections of due process, are expressly reserved and are not diminished by anything that has occurred to this point.
Part 2 – Terms of Reference
To be read as part of this notice and incorporated into it. All communications from John Henry, of the family [surname], in this matter are subject to these terms.
Man: A living, breathing, flesh and blood human being, ens reale, possessed of inherent rights at common law and natural law. John Henry, of the family [surname], is a man in this sense and no other.
Person: Where used by John Henry, of the family [surname], refers to a living man or woman only. Where used in correspondence or proceedings by any other party, clarification is required as to whether the term is being used in its statutory sense (Acts Interpretation Act 1901 (Cth) s2B, including body corporate and body politic) or its plain English sense. No obligation framed in terms of the statutory “person” will be accepted as applicable to John Henry, of the family [surname], as a living man unless that application is established by specific lawful authority.
Name — capitalisation: The name John Henry [surname] in upper and lower case refers to the living man. The name JOHN HENRY [SURNAME] in full capitals refers to a legal fiction, administrative construct, or statutory entity. John Henry, of the family [surname], does not accept that documents addressed to the capitalised name are addressed to him unless he expressly says so in writing in respect of a specific document.
Understand / Understanding: These words, as used by John Henry, of the family [surname], carry their plain English meaning only: to comprehend, to be informed of. They are not used as an acknowledgment of jurisdiction or as a submission to the authority of any court or body.
Consent: Means freely given, informed, and express agreement. John Henry, of the family [surname], has not given informed consent to the statutory jurisdiction of this court. Prior conduct does not constitute informed consent where the nature of the framework was not disclosed. Silence is not consent. Answering questions is not consent to the legal significance silently attached to those answers.
Jurisdiction: The lawful authority of a court to hear and determine a matter involving John Henry, of the family [surname], as a man. Jurisdiction must be established by reference to specific lawful authority applicable to him as a man. It is not established by conduct, appearance, or filing of documents where those acts were done without knowledge of the framework being applied.
Shall / Must / Required: Where these words appear in correspondence or orders directed to John Henry, of the family [surname], identification is required of the specific statutory provision that creates the obligation and the basis on which that provision applies to him as a man.
Consent to role or capacity: John Henry, of the family [surname], does not accept, and has not at any time accepted, the role of defendant, respondent, ratepayer, taxpayer, or any other statutory or administrative role, as a matter of voluntary and informed agreement. Any such role has been assumed by the system without his informed consent and is not binding on him on that basis.
Rights: The inherent entitlements of John Henry, of the family [surname], as a living man at common law and natural law, including the right to be heard on the facts, the right to due process, the right to have jurisdiction established before submitting to it, and the right to have every asserted obligation grounded in specific lawful authority. These rights are not statutory privileges. They are not subject to being waived by conduct taken in ignorance of the framework being applied.
Accrued rights: Rights preserved by the operation of s7(2)(c) of the Acts Interpretation Act 1901 (Cth). Not susceptible of extinguishment by administrative act, by implication, or by conduct taken without informed knowledge of the consequences.
All Rights Reserved.
By: ________________________ John Henry, of the family [surname] All Rights Reserved
Nemo potest plus juris ad alium transferre quam ipse habet — no one can transfer to another a greater right than he himself has. A court proceeding cannot confer on itself jurisdiction over a man that was never lawfully established, and no amount of prior conduct in ignorance of that fact changes what was never properly given.
… autograph block examples
Here are several options, from minimal to comprehensive, so the right level can be chosen for the context.
Minimal – suitable for routine correspondence:
By: ________________________ John Henry, of the family [family name] All Rights Reserved – Without Prejudice
Standard – suitable for notices and formal correspondence:
By: ________________________ John Henry, of the family [family name] A living man, ens reale, All Rights Reserved – Without Prejudice, Without Recourse
Comprehensive – suitable for notices, affidavits, and court documents:
By: ________________________ John Henry, of the family [family name] A living man, ens reale, of flesh and blood, Appearing in his own right and in his own capacity only By special appearance, not general appearance, All Rights Reserved – Without Prejudice, Without Recourse, Non-assumpsit
The reasoning behind each element:
“Of the family [family name]” distinguishes the living man from the capitalised legal fiction bearing a similar name.
“A living man, ens reale” states the fundamental jurisdictional fact on the face of the document.
“Appearing in his own right and in his own capacity only” prevents the appearance being characterised as representative of any other entity.
“By special appearance, not general appearance” is a term of art with direct legal effect – a special appearance is made for a specific limited purpose and does not constitute submission to general jurisdiction.
“All Rights Reserved” preserves every right not expressly surrendered.
“Without Prejudice” prevents the communication being used as an admission against interest.
“Without Recourse” is drawn from Bills of Exchange law – it means the man does not accept personal liability for any obligation beyond what is expressly stated.
“Non-assumpsit” – Latin for “he did not undertake” – directly rebuts any presumed contract or assumed obligation. It is the formal denial of an assumed promise or agreement.
The comprehensive block is the most protective for matters involving courts, councils, or any body asserting jurisdiction or obligation. For day-to-day correspondence the standard block is generally sufficient.
Last Updated 3 months ago
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