Maliiganik Tukisiiniakvik celebrates 30 years

SARA MINOGUE

The 30th anniversary of Iqaluit’s Maliiganik Tukisiniakvik legal aid clinic last Friday was also the celebration of one of Nunavut’s greatest achievements in northern justice: representation for Inuit in the courts.

“It has not just been the lawyers that have carried Maliiganik Tukissiniakvik,” says Francis Piugattuk, who joined board members and staff for tea and cake at Maliiganik’s headquarters in the Iqaluit courthouse. “It is a community effort. It sprang from the North.”

Originally from Igloolik, Piugattuk was a court worker with Maliiganik for several years before he was appointed in 1999 to the Nunavut Legal Services Board. That board now oversees the work of Maliiganik as well as its regional counterparts in Cambridge Bay and Rankin Inlet, and a satellite office in Pond Inlet.

Together, those four offices provide free legal advice to Inuit across Nunavut, and rarely turn anyone away.

Those services might not have come into being if, in 1974, Inuit Tapirisat of Canada had not heard the clamor for legal representation in the Eastern Arctic.

The very first traveling court circuit came to the Baffin region in 1957, lead by Jack Sissons, the first territorial court judge for the Northwest Territories.

In his memoirs, Sissons describes harrowing adventures in a single-engine plane, and includes photos of the dog teams that occasionally led his court party from a safe landing site to the Legion, school or church where court was to be held. It was not until 1960 that the traveling court party included a lawyer to represent the accused.

Neil Sharkey, director of Maliiganik from 1986 to 1999, describes the justice system that was in place in the 1970s:

“The entire legal community – judges, police, prosecutors, attorneys – were situated in only one place: Yellowknife. They would arrive and the police would have people charged with offenses. They would literally meet them minutes before going to court with them.”

After hearing several examples of justice denied, ITC, then the only political voice for Inuit, made a proposal to the federal government for a free service that would open its doors to anyone with a legal problem.

In November 1974, Maliiganik opened for business in a small building shared with another new entity, the Baffin Regional Inuit Association, in what is now the Nunavut Arctic College Fine Arts Studio.

Their first annual budget, including travel, was just $75,000, but for the first time, Inuit who had been arrested by the police or charged with a crime, or who wanted access to children who had been taken away, could get access to free legal advice.

A 10-person board was organized to oversee the non-profit society – a board that continues to play a major role today.

“Board members have all been local,” Piugattuk says. “They’ve all been great names, leaders in the Inuit community. They had vision.”

Elder Alicee Joamie, now retired, is a good example. Even before Maliiganik existed, she volunteered to help Inuit understand the court system. She later became one of the first board members.

Josie Papatsie, a respected elder who passed away last year, spent several years as a board member and chairman.

One of his passions was the land program, in which board members took young offenders out hunting or camping in the spring, to the point where Maliiganik bought its own skidoo for spring trips.

“He was really passionate about helping people less fortunate than himself,” says Papatsie’s daughter, Leetia Janes, who is now a board member herself. “He really believed in giving people a second chance.”

Elders Harry Kilabuk and Anawalk Arnaquq, both now passed away, were also highly respected board members.

Now Canada’s longest-running legal aid clinic, Maliiganik made several innovations from the beginning.

It was the first clinic in Canada to employ para-legal courtworkers who actually argued cases in court.

Courtworkers in the South serve mainly as liaisons between native clients and legal professionals. Here, Inuit such as Mali Curley and Naudla Oshoweetuk, the first two courtworkers, were able to represent clients.

Piugattuk’s career as a courtworker included a constitutional challenge to Criminal Code rules that insist that people convicted of certain offenses refrain from using firearms for a certain period of time. Piugattuk helped to make the case for the rights of Inuit hunters.

Today, about 14 courtworkers continue to help clients around Nunavut.

Maliiganik also played a major role in bringing Inuktitut speakers into the legal system.

Dennis Patterson, who was the Eastern Arctic’s first resident lawyer as Maliiganik’s executive director from 1974 to 1980, recalls a historic moment in the late 1970s during a coroner’s inquest in Pond Inlet. A young boy had accidentally killed a young girl while their parents slept.

“The inquest was presided over by David Mablick, an Inuk coroner, and Mali Curley represented the youth and his family,” Patterson says. “It was a first in that the proceedings were all in Inuktitut, except the RCMP member who had a translator.”

The Maliiganik board fought for and won an amendment to the Northwest Territories Jury Act, which, for the first time, allowed unilingual Inuit to sit on juries.

The board lobbied to have legal interpreters recognized as an integral component of the legal system – as essential as lawyers, prosecutors or policemen. Interpreters now travel with the court regularly.

Thanks to Maliiganik, those interpreters now have access to several glossaries of legal terms in English and Inuktitut, published through Nunavut Arctic College.

From the beginning, Maliiganik has worked hard to educate Nunavummiut about the law and their rights.

Joseph Bovard made public education a priority while he served as executive director from 1982 to 1986. He and the courtworkers of the time made several visits to the high school, spoke on the radio, put on plays and published pamphlets.

Sharkey recalls doing a radio play on youth justice in the late 1980s. For several months around the same time, he and Piugattuk made monthly appearances on CBC to answer callers’ questions about the law.

Maliiganik also played an integral role in attracting lawyers to Nunavut, some of whom have established private practices. The clinic offered a job to the very first lawyer from Nunavut, Paul Okalik, who articled at Maliiganik before becoming Nunavut’s premier.

What was once a pilot project is now a proven success that has been emulated in the Northwest Territories, and is now spawning pilot projects of its own.

The latest initiative at Maliiganik is a move towards civil law services, sometimes known as poverty law. That includes things like getting pensions, dealing with government agencies, fighting unjust dismissals, or handling wills and estates.

Or, as Sharkey puts it, “every little thing in terms of everyday problems with government and bureaucratic life that people just accepted they didn’t have any help for.”

The move into poverty law, Piugattuk says, “shows how much Maliiganik Tukisiiniakvik has been part of the community, and is evolving.”