Te Moni v Police

[2019] NZHC 2951

IN THE HIGH COURT OF NEW ZEALAND AUCKLAND REGISTRY

I TE KŌTI MATUA O AOTEAROA TĀMAKI MAKAURAU ROHE

CRI-2019-404-347

[2019] NZHC 2951

BETWEEN

WIMARUKI DIONE DARRIN TE MONI

Appellant

AND

NEW ZEALAND POLICE

Respondent

Hearing:

11 November 2019

Appearances:

Appellant, on own behalf

S Murphy for the Respondent

Judgment:

12 November 2019

JUDGMENT OF GORDON J

This judgment was delivered by me on 12 November 2019 at 3.30 pm

Registrar/Deputy Registrar Date:

Solicitors:           Crown Solicitor, Manukau Copy To: The Appellant

TE MONI v POLICE [2019] NZHC 2951 [12 November 2019]

Introduction

[1]                  The appellant, Wimaruki Te Moni, was convicted of driving while disqualified1 following a judge-alone trial before Judge Skellern in the Manukau District Court on 30 July 2019.2 He was sentenced to 60 hours’ community detention and six months’ disqualification from driving. He appeals his conviction and sentence.

[2]                  Mr Te Moni is self-represented and has not filed any submissions. In his notice of appeal, he specifies the ground of appeal as “100% Maori sovereignty”.

Background

[3]                  On 26 September 2018, Mr Te Moni was driving a motor vehicle. He was stopped by Police  at  a  roadside  checkpoint.  Subsequent  checks  revealed  that  Mr Te Moni was disqualified from driving at the time.

[4]                  Mr Te Moni represented himself at the hearing. He did not challenge the constable’s evidence that he was disqualified from holding or obtaining a driver’s licence at the relevant time, nor that he was the driver of the vehicle stopped by the constable. Instead, he brought to the Judge’s attention a document which he believed created a valid challenge to the authority of the District Court based on Māori sovereignty. The Judge dismissed Mr Te Moni’s submission, noting that:

[10] … I must, as a District Court Judge, obey [P]arliament and the Courts superior to me. Acts of Parliament are binding within [sic] all persons within the geographical territory of New Zealand whether Māori or non-Māori. The Courts of New Zealand must uphold all [A]cts of Parliament as enacted regardless of any attack upon these presumptions or procedures which might have led to their enactment. The Land Transport Act 1998 is one such [A]ct of Parliament. …

[5]Mr Te Moni was accordingly convicted of driving while disqualified.

Discussion

[6]                  Mr Te Moni addressed the Court orally. He submitted that the Queen had no jurisdiction or power to override native title. That submission, together with his

1      Land Transport Act 1998, s 32(1)(a) and 32(3).

2      Police v Te Moni [2019] NZDC 15852.

ground of appeal of “100% Maori sovereignty”, was, in effect, a challenge to the authority of Parliament to make and enforce the law he was convicted of breaking.

[7]                  This is a submission which has been rejected by the Courts on a number of occasions. Phillips v R was an unsuccessful application to the Court of Appeal for leave to appeal a decision of this Court dismissing Mr Phillips’ appeal against conviction and sentence on a charge of carelessly using a motor vehicle on a public road under the Land Transport Act 1998 (the same statute involved in this appeal).3 The Court stated:

[3] Mr Phillips’ application does not raise an arguable question of law, let alone one which by reason of its general or public importance or otherwise ought to be submitted to this Court for determination. The legal foundation for his argument has been considered and rejected by this Court and also, significantly, by the Supreme Court as plainly unarguable. The leading decisions affirm that Parliament is sovereign and its legislation applies to all New Zealanders irrespective of race. Thus New Zealand Courts are bound to accept the validity of all statutory enactments including the Land Transport Act, which as Ms Wong submits applies without limitation based on ownership, title or status of land and to all “roads” as defined by s 2. It is unarguable that the District Court had jurisdiction to hear and determine the charge against Mr Phillips.

(footnotes omitted)

[8]                  More recently in Morunga v Police,4 the Court of Appeal approved the following statement by the Full Court of the High Court in Creeks v R:5

[7] The Court of Appeal has made it clear that the courts are not the forum for a fundamental challenge to the entire constitutional structure of the country or for political campaigns of the sort the appellants are waging. Maori sovereignty can be the subject of debate in Parliament. The Waitangi Tribunal may be prepared to consider it. It can be debated in public meetings or the media. It may be the subject of lawful protest. But an assertion of Maori sovereignty does not raise a justiciable question. It cannot succeed in the general courts of New Zealand. …

[9]And finally, the Court of Appeal in Ferri v Police observed that:6

[8]     The doctrine of parliamentary sovereignty is undoubtedly of general  or public importance, but … it is well settled that arguments challenging the general law-making authority of the New Zealand Parliament cannot succeed:

3      Phillips v R [2013] NZCA 580.

4      Morunga v Police [2016] NZCA 599 at [7].

5      Creeks v R HC Auckland A138/00, 6 November 2000.

6      Ferri v Police [2018] NZCA 181.

a litigant is not entitled to put themselves outside of the law of New Zealand.

…

(footnotes omitted)

[10]              This Court, like the District Court Judge, is bound by the decisions of the Court of Appeal and Supreme Court. The authorities are clear that challenges to the Court’s jurisdiction or the authority of Acts of Parliament on the basis of Māori sovereignty are “plainly unsound legally” and cannot succeed.7

[11]Accordingly, I dismiss the appeal.

Gordon J

7      Wallace v R [2011] NZSC 10 at [2]. See also R v Mitchell CA68/04, 23 August 2004 at [14]; and

Phillips v R, above n 3, at [3].