Preface

• Author: Samrah Mian - Aaron Francis
• Pages: 1-2

APPEAL VOLUME 26 — 1

PREFACE

I must go back here to the partic ular incidents which occur to my thoughts of the time of th e

visitation, and partic ularly to the time of their shutting up houses in the  rst part of their

sickness; for before the sickness w as come to its height people had more room to make their

observations than they h ad afterward; but when it was in the ext remity there was no such

thing as communication with one an other, as before.

Daniel Defoe, A Journa l of the Plague Year, 1722

Welcome to our journal of a pandemic year. 2020 has c hanged all our lives. Some of

us have lost loved ones. We have all strugg led to keep connected, and to maintain the

relationships that sust ain us in times of happiness and dicu lty.

Yet, this is not Daniel Defoe’s plague. True, in 2020, “there was no such t hing as

communication with one another, as before”. But we have other tools to stay vir tually

connected.

is is the rst ti me—and, we hope, the last time— that Appeal is produced entirely

virtua lly. In most cases, our e ditors have never met in person. A ll our meetings were held

online, and all ou r conversations and delibe rations mediated through technology. We

learned to “unmute” ourselves, to put our comments i n the “chat”, to “reply in thread”.

Despite these peculia rities, it has been an incredible year for Appeal . We had a record

number of submissions. A signic ant number of volunteers turned out for our submissions

review sessions. A s always, our expert reviewers were incred ibly generous with their t ime

and expertise . We are grateful to t hose who submitted ar ticles and to everyone who freely

gave their time and eor t to put this project toget her under trying circumstanc es.

Volume 26 features works by six authors, including t wo from the University of Victoria

Faculty of Law. e rst part of t he volume addresse s Indigenous issues within the scope

of Aboriginal tit le and rights, child protection, and representation on juries. e latter

half exa mines critical areas requiri ng legal reform in environmental remediation, the dut y

of care owed by universities, a nd the gendered aspects of family relocation.

In 2001, Mitchell v Minister of National Revenue set out gu idelines on interpreting

modern Aborigina l rights. Alexandra Potamianos c onsiders how courts since have used

the decision to restrict the ad mission of oral history evidence and nds t hat, in eect,

Mitchell’s restrictive approach ha s limited the ability of Indigenous groups seekin g to

claim Aborigi nal title and rights.