Woman fights $183 speeding fine, ends up with $1800 bill after ‘baffling’ appeal

A woman who fought a $183 speeding fine in court using “deluded and untenable pseudolegal arguments” regularly adopted by sovereign citizens has ended up with a penalty 10 times the original amount.

The woman’s ute was photographed travelling at 70kmh in a 60kmh zone at Daisy Hill. Picture: File photo/NCA NewsWire / Naomi Jellicoe

A woman who fought a $183 speeding fine in court using “deluded and untenable pseudolegal arguments” regularly adopted by sovereign citizens has ended up with a penalty 10 times the original amount.

In dismissing Amy Jane Wells’ appeal, Judge John Allen KC described her submissions as “perplexing and legally incoherent”, ordering she pay $1800 in costs to the Queensland Police Service.

Wells had sought to appeal a speeding fine after her dual cab ute was photographed travelling at 70kmh in a 60kmh zone at Daisy Hill in March 2022.

She was issued a $183 fine but did not pay, instead taking the case to trial in the Beenleigh Magistrates Court in January 2023 where the magistrate entered a plea of not guilty on her behalf after she made “pseudolegal assertions” about the charge.

According to an appeal judgment, Wells made submissions “commonly presented to the courts by unqualified persons, often identifying as adherents to ‘sovereign citizen’ ideas”, focusing on what she described as the “12 presumptions of Roman law”.

“The appellant challenged the magistrate that she openly rebuked, rejected and rebutted all 12 presumptions of Roman law and provided further detailed submissions as to those so-called presumptions of ‘Roman law Canon 3228’,” Judge Allen wrote.

“The submissions were, I expect, to the magistrate, and remain so to me, baffling.

“I know of no “Roman law Canon 3228” which is part of the law of Queensland.

“At the end of the day, I am left wondering what it all meant.”

The magistrate ultimately found Wells guilty of the offence, fined her $183 for the traffic infringement and ordered she pay the $107 summons costs.

But Wells then appealed the decision in the District Court, on the ground that “the Magistrate refused to accept my position as executor and beneficiary”.

In her notice of appeal, Wells wrote “I have been governed without my consent” and argued that a fraud had been perpetrated “on the court, myself and this case”.

During the appeal hearing, Wells again relied on the “perplexing and legally incoherent” ‘Roman law’ argument.

“Although I do not pretend to fully understand the argument, I am quite satisfied that it is legal nonsense and provides no possible grounds for allowing an appeal against her conviction,” Judge Allen wrote.

“The other, more familiar, pseudolegal arguments as to the ‘strawman’ personality, are the arguments that the appellant has not consented to the government or legislative authority, or that there is no contract demonstrating consent, such that she is not subject to the traffic law is obviously devoid of any merit and provide no possible ground of appeal against conviction.”

Judge Allen dismissed Wells’ appeal and ordered she pay costs to the Queensland Police Service.

“It is most unfortunate that the deluded and untenable pseudolegal arguments contended by the appellant appear to have been adopted by her, whether upon her own part or the advice of others,” he wrote.

“Her unfortunate decision to defend the charge in the Magistrates Court on the basis of such deluded ideas and to appeal the decision of the learned Magistrate in this Court has resulted in a modest traffic fine of $183 escalating to a financial burden more than 10 times as much.”