Problem
In an article by Daniel Voth, "Her Majesty's Justice Be Done: Métis Legal Mobilization and the Pitfalls to Indigenous Political Movement Building", he writes: "Choosing to use Canadian courts to advance Indigenous resistance is never an easy decision for Indigenous peoples. Both Canada and the United States deploy(ed) deception, armed and forced removal, erasure and genocide in the service of establishing their settler states. Law-making power as well as the adjudication of those laws was and remains an integral part of the project of creating and maintaining a state comprised of settlers. However, there has long been a struggle by Indigenous peoples and others resisting state oppression to use settler legal discourses and institutions in a way that advances Indigenous material interests without reinforcing the structures of Indigenous oppression."
In the Borrows reading he states: "Canadian courts are separate and autonomous from the Crown and the legislature and do not function as the servants of the Queen or Parliament" p. 120 What do you think about this claim, especially in light of the Voth quote above? Does John Borrows obscure the role courts & judges play as institutions & agents of the State? Are Borrows & Voth correct in suggesting progress can be made with creative legal maneuvering?
What about the issue of legal attrition, whereby the State, which has more money and resources, and pays for and orders the legal system, can continue to run the clock out because it has little incentive to respond to the demands of justice thoroughly and fairly?