By Anna Von Reitz
As we have explained many times, the words "common law" refer to a form of law that takes reference to earlier decisions in making current decisions. There are, as a result, many, many forms of "common law" and this can be confusing when a judge is referring to "military common law" as "common law" or a magistrate is referring to "civil code" as "common law". Both these forms of law, which most of us DO NOT THINK OF as "Common Law", are in fact common law in that they take cognizance of former decisions made by other courts in considering current matters before the court.
When talking about "Common Law" we always have to ask "Common Law in what sense? What variety of "Common Law" are we talking about?"
Common Law doesn't "come from the Magna Carta" --- a misunderstanding that comes from another misunderstanding about what the Magna Carta is, where it came from, and what it set in place in England.
William the Conqueror means to conquer England permanently --- and he went about this in a very methodical manner. First, he did a very methodical survey of the lands and assets he had conquered. This inventory was recorded in two books, the Doomsday Book and the Domesday Book, which still exist.
Upon his death in 1087 A.D., he bequeathed specific parcels of land and homesteads to his loyal Norman Barons who participated in the military conquest. Along with the land grants and improvements, he granted his Barons (who remained only Barons in France) "sovereignty in their own right" on these English properties. These bequests are essentially miniature kingdoms scattered like a crazy quilt over every square inch of England at that time.
And the Barons of France became Kings in England.
The other thing that William the Conqueror purposefully did was to disinherit all his children from owning anything in England. Forever.
He didn't want there to ever be a singular King of England again, so that England would never again rear its ugly head against France.
Now, how is it that there appears to be a King of England today and for generations in the past despite William's plan?
The Pope had lands in England that had been ceded to the Church by various Kings prior to "the Norman Settlement" and William of Normandy allowed the Church to retain all its Church properties in England. After the Settlement of William the Conqueror's Will as described above, the Pope came back into the picture and cut a deal with William the Conqueror's Grandson, "King" John to act as the Overseer of the Church's Commonwealth properties in England.
Thus, "King" John was a "King" of the Vatican, not of England. His "kingdom" was borrowed from the Pope and not actually his at all, thus he was not operating in any true sovereign capacity, but was instead operating as a Legal Person in an Office granted to him by the Pope.
The Norman Barons who had become Kings in England, of course, were unaffected by this and did not regard "King John" as their king at all.
Thus, when poor administrative decisions made by John adversely impacted people living on Church Commonwealth land and this led to uprisings and complaints, the French Barons who had become Kings in England got together and set forth and signed off on the Magna Carta, clearly establishing standards of justice and law and basic rights for people throughout England --- for everyone living outside the Pope's enclaves.
Thus, the "Great Product" of England, turns out to be the Great Product of France, instead.
The Normans brought their own standards of justice to England and set them forth in the Magna Carta and they imposed these standards throughout the lands they inherited from William the Conqueror --- and they could do this as a group in opposition to anything "King" John might decree as the "law" on the Pope's Commonwealth land for the simple reason that they were all already kings in their own right.
The principles they jointly set forth to establish "a" Common Law for England --- essentially, as the Landlords of a foreign land they inherited by conquest and primogeniture -- already existed long before the Magna Carta, and were common to the Celtic peoples of Continental Europe.
What they held to be "Common Law" meant "law held to be right and just in common" --- in the same way that we use the words "common sense" to indicate commonly held standards of practicality and logic. This venerable form of law comes to us from clan traditions that are thousands of years old, in which elders meet on a regular basis to sort through current complaints and controversies in light of traditional wisdom: principles of justice held in common, and former decisions rendered over time.
For example, we all have a sense of what is fair and what is not fair, and this is not necessarily something that can be codified and fully described in a statute, yet in the "commonality" of Common Law and within the logic circuits we are all heir to, we know when something passes the Sniff Test --- or not.
Thus, the new Kings of England declared that people are to be considered innocent until proven guilty --- a Common Law principle that is at exact odds with Roman Civil Law which decrees that everyone is guilty until proven innocent.
Thus, though both English Common Law and Roman Civil Law take reference to past case law, and so can both be considered a form of Common Law, the principles and presumptions of the Common Law established by The Magna Carta are very substantially different from those of Roman Civil Law in this regard and many others.
Another example is that Roman Civil Law allows purposeful deceit under the Maxim of Law "Let him who will be deceived, be deceived." -- while The Magna Carta and all forms of traditional community-based Common Law outlaw fraud and lies of all kinds without any wiggle-room.
The punishment for fraud under Roman Civil Law is very strict as the Roman Civil Law derives from the even older Law Merchant, designed to settle disputes among merchants and vendors and customers of the same--- and not meant to apply to the general affairs of men apart from buying and selling. A finding of fraud under Roman Civil Law requires immediate dissolution of everything back to the onset of the fraud, but a similar finding under European Common Law might allow for considerations such as the limited knowledge of a vendor, or the honest intentions of a buyer impeded by "Acts of God".
Important to this is the difference between being "outlawed" and being "unlawful" and being "illegal".
Cattle Rustlers in the Old West were called "Outlaws" for a reason --- they were men operating outside the common decency and sensible restrictions of the Common Law requiring respect for private property rights. Community-based Common Law dictates the relations between living men and communities of living men. This form of Common Law, which the Romans called "the Rule of the Soil", is what most Americans think of when someone says "common law" ---without realizing that this form of common law can vary widely.
A crime like Cattle Rustling fully recognized as a capital crime in Wyoming, might not even exist on the books in New York. Thus, community based Common Law is firmly rooted in place and time and specific communities of living people. This is the form of law that exists in American Counties and which is reflected in the State Law of our nation-states.
We don't call Cattle Rustlers "Unlawfuls" because unlawful acts are the actions of Lawful Persons just as illegal acts can only be committed by Legal Persons --- these words refer to offenses taking place in international jurisdictions of the law where everyone is presumed to be acting -- not as living men -- but as Lawful or Legal Persons.
As I keep telling everyone, there are no living people operating under international law or any form of global law. The only "actors" in these jurisdictions are "persons" --- corporate entities, officers or officials of corporate entities, or incorporated entities and their principal and franchise officers and officials. When we enter these jurisdictions we are literally entering the "realm of the dead" --- lawful or legal fictions.
Lawful Persons are subject to the Law of the Land and Legal Persons are subject to the Law of the Sea or Law of the Air.
Thus, when a sailor arrives in port after a long sea voyage, he is returning from being subject to the Law of the Sea, and is becoming subject to the Law of the Land when he steps off the deck onto the dock and off the dock onto the land proper.
The ship functions under Admiralty Law, the dock functions under Maritime Law, and the actual land functions under Land Law. Thus, the Federal Constitutions are described as "the Law of the Land" for Federal Workers, their dependents, and residents of this country allowed to be here under the Residency Act.
This means that the Constitutions are the Law these Persons are meant to observe while on the land.
Though you may never have thought about it this way, the Constitutions exist in the realm of international land law, cast in the form of a service contract with service vendors that are all operating in foreign jurisdiction..
Read that: all Federal Persons, whether they were born in this country or not, are operating in a foreign capacity on the job. They won't officially return "home" again, until their service contract ends and they serve notice that they are returning to their birthright status.
Thus, the Constitutions are international law and those serving under the Federal Constitutions are serving under the law of contracts -- that is, their Service Contract.
None of this has anything to do with the community-based Common Law of the soil which our Courts administer at the County level, nor with the National State Laws or International Public Laws our State Courts address.
The system of law we are heir to is complex and precise, each part checked and balanced for the overall good. As living people we use the Public Law for our private good. As Lawful and Legal Persons we use the private law (codes, statutes, regulations, treaties and contracts) for our Public Good.
This complexity and the rooted nature of both land and soil law, which intensifies and yet strictly limits their application, accounts for such seeming mysteries as why doesn't the Credit River Decision established by Jerome Daley in 1968 apply nationwide? At least in Minnesota where the landmark case was tried? The case was tried in a County Court, so has application only within the borders of that county.
Unlike the law of the sea, the law of land and soil is fixed and applies only within specific boundaries.
As a result of England losing its way and answering to a King who was a "King" under contract to the Pope, and then later getting more enmeshed when the British Monarch lost standing on the sea (1714), this complex and intricate system of laws and jurisdictions began to be eroded; a new form of law called "equity law" which largely combined the law of the land with the law of the sea for the convenience of bill collectors was contrived by Lord Mansfield in the 1750's and popularized throughout the British-influenced domains.
This form of law was considered a bastardization of law in this country and never adopted for use in any of our courts, yet it has usurped power and claimed jurisdiction by "redefining" Americans as British Territorial and/or Roman Municipal citizens --- absent our consensual agreement or even knowledge.
Regardless of England's deplorable condition, brought about by three centuries of reckless spending and even more reckless war-profiteering, we are set upon the course of restoring our traditional government and setting the living people above the things that living people have created -- that is, mere legal fictions that have no natural right to exist.
This is part of our observance of Natural and Universal Law: the Creator is always greater than the thing created, and any inverted system of law denying this is by nature fraudulent, null and void.
Our law of land and soil is substantive and applies naturally to substantive property and rights. We are people of substance, and live in a realm of substance. Our community-based version of Common Law has existed since mankind's journey first began and was invoked again in the Mayflower Compact, where living men agreed to the law they would follow and set their hands and signatures to their principles and agreements, as a Witness to their common values and aims.
Let these lessons outlined here serve everyone as guidance going forward, so that as complex as issues of jurisdiction and law may be, we are never deceived about the nature of man or of reality again, and never again are deceived into subjecting ourselves to laws meant to govern things.
Issued by:
Anna Maria Riezinger - Fiduciary
The United States of America
In care of: Box 520994
Big Lake, Alaska 99652
July 16th 2025
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