Warren

[2020] NZHC 3264

IN THE HIGH COURT OF NEW ZEALAND ROTORUA REGISTRY

I TE KŌTI MATUA O AOTEAROA

TE ROTORUA-NUI-A-KAHUMATAMOMOE ROHE

CIV-2020-463-89

[2020] NZHC 3264

UNDER

Habeas Corpus Act 2001

RE:

An application by

RHYS RICHARD NGAHIWI WARREN

Applicant

On the papers:	At Rotorua
Judgment:	10 December 2020

JUDGMENT OF POWELL J

This judgment was delivered by me on 10 December 2020 at 5 pm pursuant to R 11.5 of the High Court Rules

Registrar/Deputy Registrar Date:

Copy to:            R Warren

c/o Hawkes Bay Regional Prison, Mangaroa

An application by Warren (Writ of Habeas Corpus) [2020] NZHC 3264 [10 December 2020]

[1]Rhys Richard Ngahiwi Warren has applied for a writ of habeas corpus.

[2]                  Mr Warren, who also appears to refer to himself as Te Rangatira Tangata Whenua, and who is currently detained in the Hawkes Bay prison, filed his application in the High Court at Napier. For reasons that are not clear Mr Warren’s documents have now been transferred to the High Court at Rotorua and placed before me in my capacity as Duty Judge.

[3]                  Having looked through the documents provided by Mr Warren it is clear that his application for habeas corpus cannot succeed, and instead is a clear abuse of process.

[4]                  First, Mr Warren has raised a number of matters by which he asserts that he is not subject to the laws of New Zealand. Mr Warren has in fact previously raised substantially the same grounds in two earlier applications for habeas corpus. The first was filed at a time when he was awaiting a trial on two counts of attempted murder and five counts of using a firearm against a law enforcement officer. This first application was dismissed by Toogood J, who not only rejected the grounds advanced by Mr Warren but concluded that Mr Warren’s application was “not a genuine application under the Habeas Corpus Act but is merely an abuse of the Court’s process”.1 Instead as Toogood J noted, Mr Warren was in fact detained as a result of  a warrant issued by Brewer J on 15 June 2016 pending his trial.2 An application for leave to appeal the decision of Toogood J, to the Supreme Court was dismissed, the Supreme Court noting:3

… Mr Warren does not challenge the warrant under which he is detained. His challenge is rather a challenge to the sovereignty of Parliament. Similar challenges have been rejected by this Court. Any appeal therefore would have no prospect of success.

(citations omitted)

[5]                  Mr Warren’s second application was made after being found guilty at trial on the two charges of attempted murder, using a firearm against a law enforcement officer

1      Warren v Chief Executive of the Department of Corrections [2017] NZHC 12 at [2]-[4].

2 At [5].

3      Warren v The Chief Executive of the Department of Corrections [2017] NZSC 20 at [7].

and wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm, for which he was sentenced to preventive detention.4 This second application came before Williams J and was dismissed after Mr Warren refrained from participating in the hearing.5

[6]                  As Williams J noted, the warrant under which Mr Warren was detained after having been sentenced to preventive  detention is a warrant issued by Brewer J on  11 August 2017.6 The Supreme Court again declined leave to appeal, noting this time:7

The applicant does not seek to challenge the warrant under which he was sentenced to preventive detention. Rather, he wishes to challenge the authority of the courts on jurisdictional grounds based on Maori sovereignty. He also wishes to claim he is “Te Tangata Whenua, in counsil (sic) with Te Tangata Whenua … 3rd party to the Corporate title, the juristic person a legal fiction the deceased estate Rhys WARREN”.

The proposed jurisdictional argument based on Maori sovereignty was also made in his application for leave to appeal against the earlier High Court judgment and was described by this Court as having no prospect of success. Nothing has changed in the nine months since that decision was delivered to change the argument’s prospects of success. A similar argument was rejected by this Court in the 2016 case: the Court recorded that similar arguments have been considered and rejected by the courts on numerous occasions. The applicant’s repetition of this argument despite its previous rejection amounts to an abuse of the Court’s process.

The proposed argument that as Te Tangata Whenua he is not the same person as Rhys Warren also has no prospect of success.

(citations omitted)

[7]                  Given these earlier proceedings and the issues addressed it is absolutely clear that the present application is precluded by s 15(1) of the Habeas Corpus Act 2001, which prevents an applicant raising “substantially the same questions as those considered by the Court when the earlier application was refused”.8 As a result and as

4      R v Warren [2017] NZHC 1913.

5      Warren v The Chief Executive of the Department of Corrections [2017] NZHC 2832.

6 At [5].

7      Te Tangata Whenua (Warren) v The Chief Executive of the Department of Corrections [2017] NZSC 189 at [2]-[4].

8      See Whichman v Chief Executive of the Department of Corrections [2019] NZHC 747 where van Bohemen J noted that it would have been open to him to have declined Mr Whichman’s habeas corpus application pursuant to s 15(1), in circumstances where Mr Whichman continued to challenge the validity of the warrants under which he was detained as each warrant incorrectly recorded he had been “convicted and discharged”. Even though the challenge before van Bohemen J related to a fresh warrant, his Honour was satisfied he could have relied on s 15(1).

was found by the Supreme Court when it disposed of Mr Warren’s second habeas corpus application, “[Mr Warren’s] repetition of this argument despite its previous rejection amounts to an abuse of the Court’s process”.9

[8]                  Even if this were not the case, it is clear that Mr Warren remains validly detained pursuant to the warrant issued by Brewer J on 11 August 2017 and therefore has no basis to challenge his detention.10

[9]Mr Warren’s application for habeas corpus is accordingly dismissed.

Powell J

9 At [3].

10 Section 14(2)(a) of the Habeas Corpus Act 2001 provides that a judge cannot call into question a conviction of an offence by a court of competent jurisdiction, as is reflected in Misiuk v Chief Executive of Department of Corrections [2011] NZCA 318 at [7]. For the sake of completion, I also note that ss 37 and 38 of the Corrections Act 2004 outline the effect of a valid warrant.