Aboriginal Justice and the Charter explores the tension between Aboriginal justice methods and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, seeking practical ways to implement Aboriginal justice. David Milward examines nine legal rights guaranteed by the Charter and undertakes a thorough search for interpretations sensitive to Aboriginal culture.

Much of the previous literature in this area has dealt with idealized notions of what Aboriginal justice might be. Here, David Milward strikes out into new territory to examine why Indigenous communities seek to explore different paths in this area, and to identify some of the applicable constitutional constraints. This book considers a number of specific areas of the criminal justice process in which Indigenous communities may wish to adopt different approaches, tests these approaches against constitutional imperatives, and offers practical proposals for reconciling the various matters at stake. Milward grapples with the difficult questions of how Aboriginal justice systems can be fair to its constituents while complying with the protections guaranteed all Canadians by the Charter.

David Milward is an associate professor of law with the University of Victoria and a member of the Beardy’s & Okemasis First Nation of Duck Lake, Saskatchewan. He assisted the Truth and Reconciliation Commission with the authoring of its final report on Indigenous justice issues and is the author of Aboriginal Justice and the Charter: Realizing a Culturally Sensitive Interpretation of Legal Rights, which was joint winner of the K.D. Srivastava Prize for Excellence in Scholarly Publishing and was short-listed for the Canadian Law & Society Association Book Prize. He also co-authored The Art of Science in the Canadian Justice: A Reflection on My Experiences as an Expert Witness. Dr. Milward is the author of numerous articles on Indigenous justice in leading national and international law journals.

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• Joint winner, K.D. Srivastava Prize for Excellence in Scholarly Publishing
• Short-listed, Canadian Law & Society Association Book Prize