Tuesday, September 04, 2007 - 09:00
Kingston Whig-Standard
Editorial - Let us suppose you were entangled in a long, frustrating dispute with your former spouse about who owned the house and the land it was on, how much child support or alimony was due and other important issues.
Let us further suppose that your claims were meeting a deaf ear from the other party and there was no prospect of a quick resolution. Then, suddenly, a third party approached a judge to demand access to some of the disputed property.
You might feel this was unfair.You might think it was unjust. And you might be right. But would you react by telling the judge it didn't matter what he ultimately decided because you weren't going to be party to any court ruling anyway?
You could take such an absurd stand, but anyone watching the court case would expect that, once the judge ruled, his word would be obeyed by everyone, and, if it were not, it would be enforced by a sheriff or police.
It's called rule of law and it's the foundation of western democratic societies. Laws exist and judges make rulings, both civil and criminal, on how these fundamental rules work in given situations. The fact that a dispute is stalled, or that you're not happy with the outcome, doesn't give you the right to shrug off the court's determinations.
Yet that's exactly what has happened in the case of a potential uranium mine north of Sharbot Lake. Two groups of Algonquins, who say the Crown land should have been subject to ownership negotiations, are ignoring a temporary court injunction that orders them to stop a two-month blockade of the area and allow a prospecting company in. Even before the judge's ruling was made public, the aboriginals said they wouldn't respect the court. "Aboriginal law supersedes an injunction by a Canadian court," an aboriginal spokesman told The Canadian Press. "We have taken the position that it doesn't matter what is issued [by the court], this will be solved through negotiations," the lawyer for the Ardoch Algonquins told the Whig-Standard. Negotiations with the threat of physical force behind them, incidentally.
It may be that the land should have been subject to negotiation with the province - just as, in our example above, it may be that your spouse should have agreed to mediation. But once the issue gets to court, the judge decides. That's the only way a society can ensure its laws are taken seriously.
Some think what the aboriginals are doing is a form of honourable civil disobedience. Many non-native residents of the Sharbot Lake area, for instance, agree with the Algonquins that there should be no uranium mine. Some of them are involved in civil disobedience of their own: they've said they'll withhold property taxes until the township takes a stand.
Neighbours refusing to pay taxes is wrong but less problematic than the blockade, because ultimately the tax dissidents will pay directly for their act: the municipal government will run out of money and cease to provide services. They will reap what they sow.
But if the aboriginals succeed in flouting the court, they may never pay directly. Instead, they will damage democracy by reinforcing the wrongheaded notion that courts are a mere convenience, to be ignored when desired. And if the OPP do not enforce the judge's orders, they will have successfully helped erode the rules that bind this society together. The ultimate end of such scenarios can only be anarchy.
Which means no laws are sacred.