Justice in stone: a celebration.

• Author: Bryant, Marian
• Position: Law and literature - Images of Justice - Book Review

This column should really be entitled Law, Literature and Art for this edition, centering as it does on Images of Justice by Dorothy Harley Eber, [McGill-Queen's University Press, 1997]. This little book is required reading for anyone with an interest in the Canadian North.

Dorothy Eber, member of the Order of Canada, is a former journalist who has become a respected author with a particular interest in the Arctic. In Images of Justice, she has taken as her theme the Inuit carving collection originally commissioned by the first judge of the Northwest Territories, the Honourable Judge Jack Sissons; the collection was continued by his replacement William Morrow. The collection is now maintained at the Yellowknife headquarters of the Northwest Territories Supreme Court.

John Howard Sissons (1892-1969) became the first judge of the Northwest Territorial Court, retiring in 1966 (his memoirs entitled Judge of the Far North: The Memoirs of Jack Sissons were published by McClelland Steward in 1968). He developed a great love and sensitivity for the Canadian North and its people.

In 1956, he received his first carving, unsolicited, after the conclusion of R. v. Kaotak. Allan Kaotak, the accused, stood trial and the allegation he had murdered his father while on the "sea ice of the Queen Maud Gulf." The central issue was whether the death was homicide or assisted suicide. In preparation for the trial, Judge Sissons researched Inuit customs and decided suicide was historically accepted as a valid decision by the aged and infirm. Mr. Kaotak was tried and acquitted in Yellowknife.

It was after this case, Judge Sissons established court circuits, identifying the following ideas to guide it:

"Justice shall be taken to everyman's door;

This court shall go on circuit to every part of its realm at least once or twice a year;

The proper place for a trial is the place where the offence was committed;

No man shall be condemned except by the judgment of his peers."

The court circuit system continues today, and we travel to the communities with somewhat greater frequency now.

Meanwhile, in 1956, Allan Kaotak returned to his home community and later sent Judge Sissons a carving representative of the Judge at a stone bench with the accused standing before him, both dressed in Arctic clothing. Mr. Kaotak thus inspired the Judge to commission carvings of some of the landmark cases in his court. The trials depicted span 1955 to 1970 and the images cover murder cases...