A man who says the law should not apply to him because he is tangata whenua has had his bail application rejected.
Jay Maui Wallace was sentenced in June to four years and three months in prison on charges of injuring with intent to injure over an incident in which he hit a woman with a sawn-off shotgun.
Wallace applied to the High Court in July seeking to be released from prison through a habeas corpus writ, which is used in cases of unlawful detention.
Representing himself, he argued New Zealand laws could not be applied to him because he was tangata whenua and he did not recognise the court's jurisdiction over him.
He entered no plea at trial for those reasons, and argued the judge's decision to enter a not guilty plea on his behalf was unlawful.
