Aboriginal Justice and the Charter: Realizing a Culturally Sensitive Interpretation of Legal Rights

Aboriginal Justice and the Charter examines and seeks to resolve the tension between Aboriginal approaches to justice and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. David Milward asks why Aboriginal communities seek reform and identifies some of the constitutional barriers in their path. He identifies specific areas of the criminal justice process in which Aboriginal communities may wish to adopt different approaches, tests these approaches against constitutional imperatives, and offers practical proposals for reconciling the various matters at stake. This bold exploration grapples with the difficult question of how Aboriginal justice systems can be fair to their constituents but still comply with the protections guaranteed to all Canadians by the Charter.