CHATTANOOGA, Tenn., Thursday, Aug. 3, 2023 — Clerk of the Tennessee courts of appeal Jim Hivner mails a F$150 bill to Arthur Jay Hirsch the very day Mr. Hirsch files an emergency petition with the state supreme court challenging a F$550 privilege tax.
By David Tulis / NoogaRadio Network
Privilege taxes are what lawyers pay for the privilege for doing business in Tennessee courts. Yet Mr. Hivner sends Mr. Hirsch, who is pro se and not a lawyer, the privilege tax bill for his emergency bill Monday, the very day Mr. Hirsch goes to the courts building in Nashville to file his “Emergency stay and ruling request; constitutional challenge to appellate rule.”
Mr. Hirsch, 74, is an independent businessman who uses the roads of Lawrence County in midstate for pleasure and private purposes, was convicted in an abusive 6-year-old driving-on-suspended criminal charge. He’s too poor to pay the freight, and indignant to discover the Tennessee constitution forbids the denial, delay or sale of justice and that the court systems puts stiff retail price on an appeal with no blue light specials or clearance sale prices.
“The Tennessee supreme court’s non-legislative claims processing rule which demands payment of $550.00 litigation tax/filing fee (“tax/fee”) as a condition precedent to him exercising his protected right to appellate review “without sale, denial or delay,” is facially UNCONSTITUTIONAL,” he says. The bill is due to Mr. Hivner for entry into court of appeals by Aug. 8, 2023.
Mr. Hirsch receives in the Wednesday mail a memo from Mr. Hivner with an invoice saying “due on receipt,” Mr. Hirsch says. In a text message he says,
It’s becoming clear that most of the purported increase in court costs is due to lawyer’s for-profit privilege activity. (Law school grads need work. Right?) They should be responsible for paying the litigation taxes and fees. Unrepresented litigants should be “excepted” from such being under inherent, secured rights. Again, it’s the individual rights vs. privilege commerce activity issue. Rights are free: privileges are taxed. State actors never want to acknowledge the existence of our unalienable, inherent, natural, God-given rights because they can’t be regulated, controlled, and taxed. Statutes and rules almost never mention “rights” of the people. Rights are not enforced (no money). Privileges are enforced by cops with big revenue flows. See why “rights’ aren’t mentioned in statutes? Money and control is the only objective.
