Indian law uses emotions and feelings but rationalist thought rejects it. Emotion was thrown out the window in the structure of modern Western law as it is found in the U.S. and Canada. W estern law is based on punishment, and Indian law 11 is based on healing. The problem with many contemporary justice initiatives directed at Indians is that they are integrationist and ultimately assimilationist. Assimilation is a genocidal and ethnocidal force which is not yet prohibited by human rights law, but it should be.
Indian justice works because it heals.
It should not be taken captive by a legal system based on force, as with circle sentencing dominated by a judge or family group conferencing directed by a non-Indian police officer. Indian justice should stand on its own, and if the Western systems of power, force, and authority wish to utilize Indian methods in their own way, they should do so. W e must take a close look at the institutions and rules which dominate in North America and see that there is an alternative methods which heal. We must recognize the forces of authoritarianism, social Darwinism and racism in today's political and legal discourse and reject them in favor of multiculturalism and humanism. Canada seems to be headed in that direction while the United States is still affected by its sad history of slavery, criminal exile, race conflict, and the fact that a small white elite holds most of the power and the money and struggles to maintain its dominance through repressive law.