how Aboriginal people are silenced under the Canadian legal discourse
D’arcy Vermette’s article, “Colonialism and the Suppression of Aboriginal Voice,” discusses how Aboriginal people are silenced under the Canadian legal discourse. Indeed, aboriginal people are still under colonization as the legal decisions made by Canadian courts restrict aboriginal laws, evidence, and reasoning in the judicial process. Even the few attempts that the Supreme Court tries to incorporate Aboriginal voice, it does not succeed.
As colonial power steadily prevails over the nation, Aboriginal people continue facing challenges in defining their own world within the context of Canadian law. Among the challenges that Aboriginals experience with Canadian law is an exclusion in legal precedent. Aboriginal people are less involved in most of the cases in courts today while determining the nature of their rights. Resultantly, it turns the Aboriginal people into mere objects under Canadian law (Vermette). The settlers’ conquest of the natives’ territory did not involve consulting the Aboriginal people regarding being under a foreign power and their laws.
Furthermore, the Aboriginal voice is suppressed under the judicial process attributed to challenges with using legal language. It is challenging for Aboriginals to craft claims for their rights in a manner that will result in the courts favoring them. Also, legal processes split disputes into only the legal questions required by the court to make a judgment. In some cases, the legal questions arrived at do not relate to the wider tensions between Aboriginals and the colonialists. Worse still, the current Canadian law is stagnant, which restricts jurists from re-envisioning how to tackle Aboriginal cases. The burden of having to incorporate the experience and professionalism of the courts is one of the reasons that makes crafting claims challenging for Aboriginal people.
Works Cited
VERMETTE, DARCY. “Colonialism and the Suppression of Aboriginal Voice.” HeinOnline 18 March 2020: 225-255.