ALBERTA LAW REVIEW

Toward an Expanded Role for Indigenous Law in the Assessment of Moral Blameworthiness in Criminal Matters

2026-02-25

Michael Luba

This article provides a critique of Canadian courts’ attempted integration of Indigenous laws into sentencing for criminal matters. First, it examines Canadian courts’ approach to resolving conflicts between Indigenous and Canadian laws in the context of recent criminal contempt proceedings in British Columbia, contrasting this approach with other legal domains. Second, it argues that Canada’s recognition of Indigenous laws creates an obligation to incorporate them into determinations of moral blameworthiness. Third, it analyzes the normative rationales underpinning Canada’s sentencing regime. Fourth, it argues that a failure to consider conflicts of Indigenous and Canadian laws in sentencing compromises the principle of proportionality. Fifth, it proposes a relaxed standard for admitting evidence of a conflict of Indigenous and Canadian laws at sentencing.

A Healthy Disrespect for the Law: The 2025 Mawhinney Lecture in Professional Ethics

2026-02-25

Florence Ashley

This article contends that lawyers should cultivate a healthy level of disrespect for the law. Professional ethics codes place the notion of respect for the law at the core of legal identity. However, this reverence serves to suppress moral outrage and shields systemic injustice from critique. This article challenges the assumption that lawyers and law students owe respect to the law in a traditional sense, and argues that suspicion of the law is a more appropriate starting point given historical and ongoing inequality. Disrespect, when principled and proportionate, can advance justice, and it is justice, rather than fidelity to law, that should guide the legal profession.

Refugees Are (Not) Welcome Here: The Paradox of Protection in Canada, Azar Masoumi (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2024)

2026-02-25

Asad G. Kiyani