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From: "Aniishinabe Center" <neegii@tekstar.com>
To: <kolahq@skynet.be>
Subject: Tribal court rejects Anishinabe treaty rights claim
Date: Wed, 22 Dec 1999 14:16:02 -0600
 

Anishinabe man terms tribal treaty ruling ‘unprecedented’

By Jeff Armstrong

Any lingering hopes for an independent judiciary within the
six-reservation Minnesota Chippewa Tribe were dashed with a Jan. 25 ruling
by Leech Lake conservation court judge Margaret Treuer that the Reservation
Business Committee has absolute dominion over the natural resources and
constitutional rights of tribal members.

The case arises from the Aug. 16, 1999 citation of Franklin (Doc) LaRose by
tribal conservation officers for fishing with an oversized net. A
subsistence fisherman, LaRose challenged the constitutional authority of the
RBC to relinquish Anishinabe hunting and fishing rights without the consent
of tribal members.

“The MCT Constitution does not forswear the power to create a tribal
justice system. It must be concluded, therefore, that the MCT did
delegate to the RBC’s of the constituent Bands, including the Leech Lake
Band, the authority to deal with tribal natural resource assets on their
respective reservations by enacting conservation regulations,” wrote Treuer
in denying a motion to dismiss by LaRose.

Describing the ruling as “unprecedented,” LaRose said Treuer
turned the philosophy of constitutional law on its head.

“There is no precedent where any constitution anywhere has been
interpreted to say that a government has authority because the
constitution doesn’t specifically say they don't have the authority,”
said LaRose. “She reversed her earlier decision. She reversed the entire
doctrine of constitutional law.”

Treuer rejected LaRose’s argument that the Leech Lake Reservation
Business Committee was bound by federal and international law to submit a
1973 agreement restricting tribal treaty rights and establishing a
reservation court to enforce the ensuing conservation code to a referendum
vote of affected tribal members.

“Whether the tribal decision to enter into the settlement was unwise or
whether the issue should have been submitted to a reservation vote is a
political question that is not for this Court to decide. That the Leech
Lake Conservation Court may have been established as a result of the
agreement does not change the constitutional basis for its existence nor
place the Court under the authority of the State,” Treuer stated.

LaRose also maintained that the court’s inability to interpret the MCT
Constitution and the RBC’s serving simultaneously as prosecution and court
of appeals inherently denies defendants the right of due process.

In support of his motion, LaRose cited Treuer’s 1988 election protest
ruling, which stated that “to deny this Court the authority to hear and
determine constitutional issues raised in an election
protest would be a denial of right of Plaintiff to due process and the right
to petition for redress of grievances which were accorded him by the
Congress of the United States under the Indian Civil
Rights Act.”

After several years of serving as a tribal judge, however, Treuer, has
apparently developed a far narrower interpretation of the ICRA.

“The defendant has produced no evidence and does not assert that he has
been, or will be, treated unfairly or unjustly or that the RTC or any of its
members have, or will, interfere with the Court in
the orderly, just and fair disposition of the charges against him. The basic
elements of the due process requirements of the Indian Civil Rights Act are
notice and the opportunity to be heard,”
Treuer wrote.

LaRose said Treuer’s decision was devastating, if not particularly
surprising.

“It’s a political ruling for her own financial and political status. It has
nothing to do with established law,” LaRose said. “They say they’re
exercising self-determination, but any time anything goes wrong they say
federal law gives them this authority.”
 

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