Enforcing Indigenous Laws: Empowering Justice Through Process

Photo by Mladen Borisov on Unsplash

Tawow!

As nations revitalize and stand up their laws, discussions around enforcement have increasingly emerged at the forefront of priorities. At the Indigenous Bar Association’s recent panel on “Enforcement of First Nations Laws & Nation Building,” Alyson Bear, Ceilidh Stubbs, and Casey Caines emphasized a truth echoed across many Nations: revitalizing Indigenous law and legal orders means more than writing laws—it requires rebuilding the systems, relationships, and capacities that support those laws to live.

A central theme was the need for community buy-in. Laws carry authority when they emerge from community knowledge, experiences, and values. Hard conversations are part of this work, the panelists noted, but when guided by Indigenous ways of knowing they become opportunities for reimagining enforcement through a Nation’s own processes and priorities. 

At Doig River’s (DRFN) Walking the Path of Justice Conference, Justice Manager Stephanie Attachie highlighted this challenge within Doig River First Nation. Early land code templates did not reflect Doig’s own laws or approaches to resolving harm. The Nation is now asking a transformative question: How do we build something rooted in our ways while meeting the needs of our people today? It is the question of the many nations involved in law revitalization work. 

Innovative work is being done to consider what enforcement can look like including what the underlying goals of enforcement are. Emerging models like the Ga Naa Na Ga Da Waa Ba Dang (Kenora Justice Centre) show another way. They are approaching enforcement through a focus on community safety, rather than punishment, and creating frameworks to engage in dispute resolution processes rooted in individual nations' ways of knowing.

Ultimately, enforcing Indigenous laws is not a siloed challenge. It reflects another piece of nation-building and reconnecting governance work with the wisdom of yesterday and the needs of today. As we at the Lodge consider the work of law revitalization, we will continue to look to implementation and enforcement mechanisms as part of the process. 

Until next time, if we removed the word ‘enforcement’ what would it mean to see Indigenous law fully implemented and supported?