Between:

              TRIBAL SYSTEM NATIVES of the SUN-DANCE
              (Central), the POTLATCH (Western) and the
              FEAST OF THE DEAD (Eastern) TRADITIONS,
              on the relation of HER MAJESTY THE QUEEN,

                                                           Petitioners,

                                  vs.

              THE HONOURABLE the CHIEF JUSTICES of
              CANADA, BRITISH COLUMBIA, ALBERTA,
              ONTARIO and QUEBEC as representatives of
              the non-native domestic legal systems of Canada,
              and THE HONOURABLE the GRAND CHIEF of
              the ASSEMBLY of FIRST NATIONS,

                                                           Respondents.

2. By order in council dated 7 October 1763 His Majesty King George III expressly constituted in colonial Crown Courts jurisdiction for the apprehension and trial of persons committing crimes upon Public Lands who flee to Hunting Grounds to evade criminal process.

3. By act of parliament 1 & 2 Geo. III, c. 66 (1821) the said previously established jurisdiction of the said colonial Crown Courts was enlarged to encompass crimes committed by persons (exclusive of natives) upon the Hunting Grounds themselves.

4. Usurpation of jurisdiction by the judges of the said colonial Crown Courts (and the domestic courts of Canada as their successors) over the aforementioned disputes regarding Hunting Grounds boundaries, and over natives upon Hunting Grounds, constituted (and constitutes) treasonable and fraudulent contempt of the said 1704 and 1763 constitutive instruments.

5. If inadvertent, their crime is "Misprision of Treason" (and Misprision of Fraud) within the meaning of paragraph 6 of the Indian Part of the said 1763 instrument. Otherwise, the premature assumption and exercise of the constitutionally restricted jurisdiction of colonial courts and their successors is simple treason and fraud.

6. To the extent that the said treason and fraud are genocidal in consequence, the aforesaid Standing Committee by necessary implication has the complementary jurisdiction relative to Canada of an "international penal tribunal as may have jurisdiction" within the meaning of article VI of the Convention for the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, 1948.

7. By the Constitution Act, 1982 parliament confirmed the above noted rights and remedies, being complementary aspects of the "existing aboriginal and treaty rights" complex continued by section 35(l).

8. In summary existing constitutional law stipulates that: (a) the natives' tribal system prima facie retains its aboriginally vested jurisdiction over Hunting Grounds except as qualified by constitutional amendment; (b) by constitutional amendment the domestic Crown Courts are vested with criminal jurisdiction over non-natives on Hunting Grounds; (c) the aforesaid Standing Committee retains the jurisdiction both to resolve disputes regarding the boundaries of Hunting Grounds and to sanction the usurpation of jurisdiction in relation to Hunting Grounds; and (d) the Queen remains burdened with residual jurisdiction under the royal prerogative to appoint commissioners to the said Standing Committee, and to refer to them questions for their determination according to existing constitutional and international law.

FACTS

9. By order in council (Canada) dated 23 January 1875 Canada acknowledged her constitutional obligation under sections 90, 91 (24), 109 and 129 of the Constitution Act, 1867 to disallow as unconstitutional provincial Public Lands Acts that had been enacted under section 92(13), if those Public Lands Acts purported to be operative upon Hunting Grounds.

10. By necessary implication the said 1875 acknowledgement of inoperability upon Hunting Grounds and the corresponding constitutional duty of disallowance applies equally to the Supreme Court Acts that have been enacted under section 92(14) of the said Constitution Act, 1867.

11. Instead of implementing the said 1875 order in council, in subsequent years Canada began prematurely to apply the said Indian Act along with the said Public Lands Acts and Supreme Court Acts to yet unsurrendered Hunting Grounds.

12. The avowed purpose of the said (premature and illegal) application to the Hunting Grounds of the said Indian Act, Public Land Acts, and Supreme Court Acts was genocidal: "the great aim of our legislation has been to do away with the tribal system and to assimilate the Indian people in all respects with the other inhabitants of the Dominion, as speedily as they are fit for the change" [per Prime Minister Sir John A. Macdonald, Return to an Order of the House of Commons, 2 May 1887 (20b) quoting a Memorandum dated 3 January 1887].

13. Substantively, the said Indian Act on its face purports to apply to a "reserve" that has been "set apart for a particular band." Such reserves legally are so set apart when a treaty is made whereby the tribal system surrenders its Hunting Grounds, and retains or receives a grant of such a "reserve" along with other consideration.

14. The Indian Act does not on its face purport to apply to yet unsurrendered Hunting Grounds; if it did it would be inoperative because of sections 109 and 129 of the Constitution Act, 1867 which, like section 35 of the Constitution Act, 1982, have the effect of saving and continuing previously established constitutional rights.

15. In 1880 the Indian Act (that prematurely and illegally contrary to sections 109 and 129 of the Constitution Act, 1867 was being applied in practice to Hunting Grounds) was amended so as to make the said tribal system illegal whenever and wherever there should be a local Indian "band" government elected under the said Indian Act.

16. Illegal (because prematurely established on Hunting Grounds prior to treaty) "reserves" for "particular bands" were then "set up" on Hunting Grounds, by administrative and executive fial. Correspondingly, illegal elected Indian Act band councils were set up to administer these illegal reserves, and to displace the previously established and still legitimate (on yet unsurrendered Hunting Grounds) tribal system.

17. Thereafter, Canada for legal purposes recognized only such Indian Act "reserves" and elected "band" governments, to the exclusion of recognition of the legitimate tribal systems, even upon Hunting Grounds.

18. By this means, Hunting Grounds and tribal systems though still legal ceased to exist for all practical purposes so far as domestic Crown Governments and Courts were concerned. Elected Indian Act councils operating illegally on Hunting Grounds ever since have been coerced by domestic Crown Governments and Courts into functioning so as to eradicate the legitimate tribal systems and their adherents.

LOCUS STANDI

19. The implementation of this program of coercion in relation to Hunting Grounds depends upon: (a) the usurpation of jurisdiction by the domestic Crown Courts (represented herein by the Honourable the Chief Justices) acting under the aforesaid Supreme Court Acts, and the consequent (premature and illegal) enforcement upon Hunting Grounds of the Indian Act and the Public Land Acts, and (b) the active collaboration, by attornment to the said usurped jurisdiction, of the fifth column Indian Act "band" governments (represented herein by the Honourable the Grand Chief of the Assembly of First Nations).

20. Each and every of the petitioners (particularized in Schedule "A") attests that in consequence of the aforesaid (treasonable and fraudulent) usurpation by domestic Crown Courts in relation to Hunting Grounds, the members of the tribal system to which he or she belongs have been and are being subjected to "serious mental harm" within the meaning of article II (b) of the above mentioned convention and, correspondingly, to prejudiced rates of mortality.

ORDER IN COUNCIL REQUESTED

21. The petitioners ask Her Majesty the Queen to commission independent and impartial persons to serve on the Standing Committee constituted by Queen Anne (or to constitute a substitute committee) for the purpose of addressing and reporting upon the existing Hunting Grounds boundary and the legal sanctions, if any, applicable to the respondents for (misprision of) treason and fraud and complicity in crimes related to genocide due to usurpation of jurisdiction in relation to the Hunting Grounds so delimited.

DATED: January 3, 1995.                 Respectfully submitted,


                                        Bruce Clark
                                        Of Counsel

SCHEDULE "A"

Representing the FEAST OF THE DEAD (Eastern) Tradition:

M. Verna Friday
[[another signature - not sure of name]]

Percy Rosette
John Stevens

Harold Pascal
Henry Saul
Leonard George