Mi’kmaw lawyer recognized
Brown recognized with Mi’kmaq People’s Council distinction
MEMBERTOU — Douglas Brown, a now retired lawyer, was recognized with the Mi’kmaq People’s Council distinction as the first known Mi’kmaw lawyer to retire in the region.
The award was presented by Eastern Door, a group of Indigenous lawyers.
“Nothing can be a higher award than being recognized by my peers and people,” said the 56-year-old Brown.
Brown is from Membertou First Nation and was called to the bar in 1997. He graduated from the Indigenous, Black & Mi’kmaq Initiative at the Dalhousie University School of Law in Halifax.
He was presented with the Mi’kmaq People’s Council distinction on Nov. 17, having retired in 2019 to protest the ongoing systemic racism he says he has seen in the provincial court system.
Brown said he worked on two cases involving the Mi’kmaq right to hunt for food. The individuals were charged under Section 68 of the wildlife act — hunting with a light — but Brown argues the cases were never about safety but a way for people to challenge affirmed treaty rights.
“Nova Scotia has taken the position that it can jail Mi’kmaq people for their cultural right to hunt for food,” said Brown.
He felt his former clients should never have been charged because the Supreme Court of Canada has affirmed the treaty rights of Mi’kmaq to fish, hunt and to make a moderate livelihood in the Supreme Court case of Donald Marshall Jr.
Despite treaty rights being affirmed in the Canadian Constitution under Section 35, Brown says Mi’kmaq continue to have to fight to assert their rights, in a court system that already affirmed them. And he believes white lobbyists wield entirely too much influence and force the courts to retry those rights.
“Access to justice has been an issue for our people,” said Brown.
One client was in the courts from 2006-19 arguing for treaty rights already affirmed so Brown felt as a Mi’kmaw man he had to make a statement on the ongoing issues in the Nova Scotia courts.
In 2016, he wrote a 40-page brief stating the problems in the Nova Scotia judicial system weren’t with the laws but with the judges — judges who despite previously rulings went ahead and heard cases.
Brown feels those who don’t understand the treaty rights can see them as unfair advantages and says the ongoing challenges to the moderate livelihood fishery is an example. White interest groups lobby for federal changes because they disagree with Mi’kmaq treaty rights or find wide ranging claims from conservation to safety to prevent Mi’kmaq from asserting those rights.
Brown thinks the province should implement sections of the Royal Commission on the Donald Marshall Jr. Prosecution, which came out in 1989, to address systemic racism in the courts. He would like to see them begin with a review board for wrongful convictions.
“I think they should take the Marshall Inquiry seriously,” said Brown.
Brown is recovering from effects of diabetes but plans to write a book in the future. He said he broke decorum to point out the flaws in the system because he found systemic racism sickening and needed to be called out.