An Ethnographic and Humanistic View: Does the BC Human Rights Tribunal Hold Promise for Indigenous People?

Bruce Granville Miller

doi:10.1590/1809-43412021v18a701

Abstract

Abstract In this paper I consider if the BC human rights tribunal holds promise for Indigenous peoples or is best understood as Trojan horses that absorb the energies of people who have experienced discrimination and as state-centered institutions which are unable to engage with Indigenous values and practices. The data are derived from an examination of all decisions given by the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal to sort out those brought by or against Indigenous people, interviews with tribunal members and human rights lawyers with tribunal experience, an examination of a seminal case, Radek, and published studies of Indigenous awareness of and attitude towards tribunals. I argue that the tribunal process fails Aboriginal peoples on several grounds and very few cases result in final decisions. But, significantly, the tribunal allows for transformational cases that substantively change the circumstances for Indigenous people of the province.

Highlights

The British Columbia, Canada, Human Rights TribunalHuman Rights Tribunals are a recent development in the Canadian legal system, following from the logic of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights promulgated in the post-war United Nations
A second case in which I was retained was never heard after I submitted my expert report with the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal (BCHRT), but provides an insight into tribunal processes
The Prospect of Emancipatory Breakthroughs, BC. Another way of viewing the data regarding the limited number of decisions rendered and the difficulties of the process is to place emphasis on the cases that brought significant, emancipatory breakthroughs in establishing legal rights of Indigenous people

Summary

Methods

There are features of legal processes that are best understood from the inside, as an actor in the formal and informal proceedings For this reason, some of my data comes from cases in which I have been retained as an expert and have submitted an expert report and/or testified in the tribunal. A second case in which I was retained was never heard after I submitted my expert report with the BCHRT, but provides an insight into tribunal processes This case arose after an inter-tribal group attempted to create a small treatment centre for youth at risk and was opposed by townsfolk who placed egregious ads in newspapers and signs on streets associating Indigenous youth and violence. The structure on which these issues are appended

Background

Discussion and Conclusions