Delgamuukw V. British Columbia - Supreme Court Ruling

Supreme Court Ruling

The Supreme Court made no decision on the land dispute, insisting that another trial was necessary. Specifically, the Court held, "I reject the submission with respect to the substitution of aboriginal title and the self-government for the original claims of ownership and jurisdiction.... The content of common law aboriginal title, for example, has not been authoritatively determined by this Court... This defect in the pleadings prevents this Court from considering the merits of this appeal."

The legal significance of those passages is that the Indian "Interest" within the meaning of section 109 of the Constitution Act, 1867, was not involved in the appeal. Section 109 is the section that says the Crown's CONSTITUTIONAL "Interest" is subject to the Indian CONSTITUTIONAL "Interest" so long as the Indian "Interest" has not been sold to the Crown by a valid treaty. It confirms that Indian sovereignty, i.e., exclusive jurisdiction and sole possession, is the supreme law of the land pending treaty and, correspondingly, establishes the utter irrelevance of Crown Parliamentary legislation and Crown court recent inventions based upon the "common law".

It has been said that "The ruling also made important statements about the legitimacy of Indigenous oral history ruling that oral histories were just as important as written testimony.

It has been claimed that the case was improperly framed by the lawyers who filed the case and it decided nothing nor could it have decided anything.