Southern Justice is poorly suited to the needs of Davis Inlet
People in southern Canada smooth over the awkward wrinkles of daily life—the missed appointment, the late assignment, the unrequited love affair—with a convention known as the social fiction. The face-saving purpose of these innocent lies allows society to continue unbruised, despite the lapses of its members. For more serious violations of the social contract, southerners turn to the adversarial combat of open court.
The Inuit of the North have traditionally held to another system of resolving disputes, which extends the charming tact of the social fiction to matters of crime and punishment. As Crown prosecutor Rupert Ross writes in Dancing With A Ghost—Exploring Indian Reality, whole Inuit villages assemble, including the two arguing parties, and a discussion is held to see what might be done about a problem that could happen in the future.
No mention is ever made of the actual dispute at hand. No facts are found, no guilt assessed, no consequences imposed. These would get in the way of justice.
Instead, the "accused" is free to talk about how such a dispute might have occurred in the first place. The "victim" can talk about how such an experience might affect someone. The entire community can suggest ways to restore things after such an incident, were one to ever occur.
Then everyone departs, as though nothing contentious had ever happened. And in a real sense nothing ever did, which is entirely the point. The ingenious use of the social fiction allows the Inuit to achieve several of the goals of justice—security, restitution, correction, prevention—without resorting to individual blame or punishment.
It is a good system for a society that cannot tolerate friction among its people or the loss of its members; and it has the confidence of those who submit to it.
Set against this is the southern justice system imposed—to the Inuit and Innu way of reckoning—by strangers of unfamiliar race and strange customs, representing a foreign government and its far-off Queen. This other system has a different view of human nature. It believes human nature is fallen, and therefore it is not responsible for the offender beyond his offence, or the community beyond the court house walls. It is concerned with what people do, rather than what they are.
The system as a whole strikes natives as rather vengeful and useless. "We know you have a legal system," a native Elder once remarked to Mr. Ross. "We’re just not sure you have a justice system."
Native justice is most concerned with repairing the community and it uses banishment as a last resort. Southern justice ignores the consequences of crime and disposes of offenders like spent tissue. It banishes with such callous indifference that it cannot build prisons fast enough, jailing people for behaviours that, in native eyes, are not crimes but social problems that the community should address. It is a system poorly suited to them, incompatible with their beliefs, discriminatory in its application. They shouldn’t accept it, and increasingly they do not.
The Innu of Davis Inlet have had quite enough of a circuit court that removed their people without discernible gain to the community. The state wants to prosecute dozens of cases on the Labrador island, in particular a couple whose five children died in a house fire while they were out drinking. But the Innu say a prison term would serve no purpose. They regard the incident as a social problem for them to address.
Newfoundland Justice Minister Ed Roberts has responded to this initiative as though he had another Riel Rebellion on his hands. He prepared to invade the tiny community with an R.C.M.P. attack force, on the rather one-sided principle that it would be wrong for him (if not for the Innu) to negotiate under the threat of violence.
Meanwhile, a tribal court in the Tlingit community of Klawok, Alaska, dealt with justice this week in the traditional manner. A pair of 17-year old Tlingit youths were charged with robbery and beating of a pizza delivery man. The attack left him deaf in one ear. The youths were sentenced to banishment on separate islands for 18 months. Once an Elder has seen to their basic shelter and survival skills, they will spend their time entirely alone.
The youths were sentenced to a primitive punishment, without the protection of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms or the Young Offenders Act, but it is hard to summon outrage. Chances are, they will be the better off for it. In which community, Mr. Roberts, is justice being served?
(Source: Native Studies 30. Saskatchewan Education.)