Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

The lecture given by two law professors of the University of Victoria pointed many important themes of Indigenous Law in Canada, specifically laws based on the Cree nation’s tradition. The take away for me from this lecture was the importance of making visible Indigenous Law within the processes ruled by Canadian Laws. For that end, the scholars said, it is important to question what makes that invisibility and to make Indigenous Law available for the community. With their own laws, Indigenous peoples pave the way to stablish a symmetrical relation with the Canadian state.

The development of an independent system of laws of Indigenous peoples helps them not to disappear under Canadian Laws processes. Given the widespread and settled misconception that Indigenous peoples cannot handle major issues of justice, the formal institutionalization of Indigenous Laws gives back these peoples’ sovereignty and challenges the paternalism of Canadian Laws. In addition, the creation of this new system revitalizes cultural knowledge and the role of the Elders in the transmission and maintenance of this knowledge. It includes the knowledge coming from the people, the plants, nature (and all that inhabits it), and the spiritual beings. Indigenous Laws, according to the lecturers, are in accordance and balance with spiritual and formal forms of abuse of power or breaking-law actions.

The distinction between the roles of the community and the court when it come to spiritual abuse of power is another important aspect of this novel system. I asked one of the lectures when the session was over and she kindly explained me this section. In summary, she said since the court would be unable to recognize or to scrutinize about the abuse of “spiritual” or “medicine power”, it would be left to the community to address those issues. If the community feels the need to include the written principles of Indigenous Law, they can ask the Indigenous court to intervene. Then, it is a way to recognize the agency and knowledge of the community about distinct forms of power and abuse that normally the western just does not. Moreover, Indigenous justice emphasizes the process of healing, which contrasts sharply with the western rehabilitation. The healing process involves the whole community in ways that are productive for both parties, the perpetrator and the survivor. Therefore, everyone in the community.

In my community back in Ecuador, we also have an small system of Indigenous justice. Which in my view and the experience of most people, works better than the governmental justice. It is more effective in many ways. Specially, it helps avoid the corruption involved in the dominant institutions of “justice.” However, as here in Canada, Indigenous justice in Ecuador still is subject to stereotypes and discrimination from non-Indigenous and some Indigenous people. I agree with the lecturers and my community leaders that it is time to build our own system of justice. We need to work together for improving it and regain our sovereignty as Indigenous nations. If developed and institutionalized in the best and the right way, Indigenous justice can make a great contribution to healing processes not only addressing the legacy of colonialism but also in our decolonized future.