Item – Theses Canada

​
OCLC number
648383170
Link(s) to full text
LAC copy
LAC copy
Author
Gavigan, Shelley Ann Marie,1951-
Title
Criminal law on the Aboriginal plains : the First Nations and the first criminal court in the North-West Territories, 1870-1903.
Degree
S.J.D. -- University of Toronto, 2008
Publisher
Ottawa : Library and Archives Canada = Bibliothèque et Archives Canada, [2009]
Description
4 microfiches
Notes
Includes bibliographical references.
Abstract
This study undertakes an in-depth analysis of the relationship between the First Nations and the criminal law in the 'Saskatchewan' region of the North-West Territories, taking as its temporal point of departure the creation of the Territories in 1870. Through data derived from criminal court records from Hugh Richardson's tenure on the territorial bench (1876-1903), this study analyses the role of Canadian criminal law in a watershed period of social and legal transformation in and for the lives of the First Nations. The dissertation critically engages with discourses of criminalization in the historiography and calls for greater precision in the use of 'criminalization', where distinctions between criminal law and other forms of law are recognized. Specifically, it argues that offences under the 'Indian Act' offences did not criminalize but rather 'Indianized' the First Nations. They were prosecuted as "Indians" - not as criminals - for not conforming to the behaviour required of Indians by the 'Indian Act.' The dissertation departs from a conventional approach to criminal law, as forms of Aboriginal participation, rather than legal categories, were used to identify themes. Through an analysis of the criminal cases where Aboriginal people were prosecuted for criminal offences, as opposed to offences under the 'Indian Act', and in cases where the relationship between Government Indian policy and the administration of criminal justice can be discerned, the dissertation demonstrates the importance of attention to the specificity of different legal forms and actors and the relationship between them. The study has also found that Richardson's court could be a site of resistance to government policy by different actors, including Aboriginal people and even Richardson himself, as he did not always acquiesce to the entreaties of government officials, even as he admonished the Aboriginal people before him. Aboriginal participation in the criminal court is also analysed through court records in which Aboriginal persons were informants, victims or witnesses in criminal prosecutions. The dissertation re-situates criminal law within the law-state relation and concludes that criminal law operated in complex and contradictory ways that included the mediation as well as enforcement of relations of inequality.
ISBN
9780494398456
0494398450