Sovereign Citizens, Apartment Embassies, And Secret Government Bank Accounts - Freemen-On-The-Land In Alberta Courts

On September 27, Calgary police arrested Mario Antonacci (also known as Adreas Pirelli) on Quebec warrants originating from a 2007 alleged assault on his former Montreal landlady. While this arrest in itself was not particularly spectacular or unique, it came during a week where Mr. Antonacci was the centre of a media storm regarding his involvement in the Freemen-on-the-Land movement. Mr. Antonacci had caught the public eye by refusing to vacate his Calgary apartment, having declared it an "embassy" and a sovereign nation separate from Canada. The Freemen-on-the-Land movement originated in the United States as a fringe libertarian movement. Its members claim they are "sovereign citizens" and don't recognize the rule of law. This is based on a belief that statute law is contractual, and that individuals may opt out of statutes and are only bound by a nebulous concept called "natural law." This is followed by creative interpretations of the law, which often involves claiming that they are separate individuals from their birth certificate, that a court of law is governed by Admiralty law if there is a flag in the courtroom, or that the government has a secret bank account for each individual that may be accessed with the right combination of notary stamps. Litigation involving Freemen-on-the-Land often becomes swamped by misleading or pseudolegal documents. However, the Freemen-on-the-Land movement has a darker side than just slowing down the court process through mountains of legally irrelevant or garbled documentation. In 2011, the FBI placed the movement on their domestic terror watchlist, after the shooting deaths of two police officers in Arkansas by members of the Freemen movement during a routine traffic investigation. In Canada, the Freemen movement has been more heavily present in family and landlord/tenant disputes, but lawyers practising in many different fields may encounter individuals belonging to this movement. On September 25, 2013, the Alberta Law Society issued a practice advisory regarding Freemen, or "Organized Pseudolegal Commercial Argument" (OPCA) litigants, as they are formally known. This advisory cautioned lawyers not to notarize documents with no legal effect or that are legal fictions, and advises lawyers to not assist in preparing documents that resemble court documents and are intended to deceive the recipients. The advisory also warns lawyers to advise clients if the clients have entered into contracts or are...