Terry Halifax
Northern News Services

NNSL (Mar 19/99) - The community of Ndilo held a community justice workshop last week, to discuss alternatives to court systems and sentencing.

Many communities throughout the North have begun to establish youth justice committees, elder senates and circle sentencing to provide a more holistic approach to community justice.

The three-day workshop was hosted by the Yellowknives Dene First Nation and featured presentations from justice officials, elders, police and community officials.

Roy Erasmus, MLA for Yellowknife North, was on hand to welcome the assembly and speak to the delegation of the importance of restoring the old ways of justice to help pave the way for self-government.

"Community justice is another method of taking over your own matters," Erasmus said. "You must take responsibility for your own actions."

Erasmus, a lawyer, welcomed the plans to reform the justice system and spoke of the positive effects of alternatives like circle sentencing, where the accused faces a group of elders and people from the community to hear the details of an offence, before recommending a just sentence.

"Circle sentencing provides alternatives for our people with elders working with judges and community people," he said.

"The person being dealt with has to face the people who know them."

"When you deal with it in your own community, you can't deal with a line of BS, because everybody knows what's going on," Erasmus said.

Legal aid attorney Joan Mercredi spoke to the committee and gave an overview of the court system.

She sees the community justice system as a better first step in the delivery of many family law situations.

"People tend to look at the Canadian justice system as just criminal justice, period," she said.

"Where as justice comprises many other important areas, such as family law and child welfare laws and that's where I think community justice could get involved with."

In sensitive issues like family law, Mercredi said the community would be the best judge of what is best for the child.

"With a child apprehension, that generally goes through the courts," Mercredi said.

"That child is apprehended. A social worker makes an application in the court, and it's brought before a territorial court and that judge decides whether or not they get their order to keep that child."

"Instead of going through the courts, I see community justice could be the initial contact," she continued. "Instead of Social Services going through the courts they could first, they could divert and consult with the community."

The conference also featured Fort Resolution Justice of the Peace, Danny Beaulieu, who has helped numerous communities establish community justice programs.

Beaulieu said there is nothing new to this form of justice.

"We've been using the sentencing circle for hundreds and hundreds of years," he said.

"It's just that we had to stop when the Europeans brought in their laws and said we'd have to switch."

Sometimes it may take time for rehabilitation, he said, but the communities are always very helpful, where the system may be seeking a more time efficient method of sentencing.

"It's a healing process and sometimes it takes a lot of time to heal," he said. "But as a community, we have a lot of time to work with our people."