An Indian Day School was a school for Indigenous children, usually located closer to home than residential schools but built on the same assimilation logic: suppress language, culture, and family […]

Inherent jurisdiction is the built-in authority of superior courts (like provincial superior courts and courts of appeal) to control their own process and grant certain remedies, even where no statute […]

An innocent third-party purchaser or good-faith purchaser is usually defined as someone who buys property without knowledge of hidden defects, disputes, or prior claims affecting the land. In many legal […]

The international character of treaties is the idea that some agreements are better understood as nation-to-nation instruments than as simple domestic contracts. They are made between distinct political communities, often […]

Judicial notice is when a court accepts certain facts as so well known or indisputable that they don’t need formal proof. Common examples include basic geography, the fact that the […]

Judicial review is the process by which courts examine decisions made by governments, tribunals, and other public bodies to ensure they are lawful, reasonable, and procedurally fair. It does not […]

A jurisdictional vacuum is what exists when no authority has clearly and lawfully taken up the job of governing a space, even though governments act as if they have. On […]

Jus soli (“right of the soil”) is the principle that a person’s citizenship is determined by the place of their birth. Canada is a jus soli country: with narrow exceptions […]

Justiciability is the question of whether an issue is appropriate for a court to decide, or whether it is too political, speculative, or abstract. Courts sometimes decline to hear cases […]

Land Back, in general, is a movement that calls for the return of land and decision-making power to Indigenous peoples. In the Haldimand context, Land Back is not an abstract […]

Law and memory describes the way legal systems depend on what societies choose to remember and forget. Statutes, cases, and grants are only as powerful in practice as the institutions […]

The legal duty to consult is a doctrine developed by Canadian courts that requires governments to consult Indigenous peoples when decisions may adversely affect their rights or claimed rights. It […]

Letters patent are formal legal instruments issued under the Crown’s prerogative, historically used to grant land, offices, corporate status, or other rights. They are “open letters” (as opposed to private […]

A lineage map is a visual representation of how people and families connect across generations. Unlike a simple family tree sketched on paper, a lineage map can layer multiple systems […]

Longhouse jurisprudence is a way of describing Haudenosaunee legal reasoning rooted in the Great Law of Peace, clan systems, and longhouse practices. It includes ideas about shared authority, the role […]

The Mark of Honour is Lord Dorchester’s term for the special hereditary recognition he proposed in 1789 for families who “adhered to the unity of the Empire and joined the […]

A matrilineal clan line is a line of descent traced through mothers rather than fathers. In Mohawk and broader Haudenosaunee law, clan identity—Bear, Wolf, Turtle, etc.—is inherited from the mother. […]

Matrilineal descent is the broader principle that identity, belonging, or inheritance is determined by the mother’s line. In many Indigenous legal orders, including Mohawk law, crucial aspects of nationhood are […]

Memory work is the deliberate practice of recovering, preserving, and transmitting stories, documents, and understandings that have been suppressed or forgotten. It includes archival digging, oral history, community teaching, website […]

Mental harm and cultural genocide (information sphere) refers to the psychological and cultural damage caused not only by physical dispossession, but by long-term distortions in education, media, and official narratives. […]

A militia roll is an official list of people enrolled in local militia units, often including their names, ranks, and sometimes basic personal information. In the 18th and early 19th […]

Misadministration refers to long-term mishandling, neglect, or incompetent management by those entrusted with power. It can involve poor record-keeping, inconsistent policy application, failure to protect interests, or a pattern of […]

Mischaracterization is describing something in a way that distorts or oversimplifies its true nature, often for convenience or strategic advantage. In law and policy, mischaracterization can shape which rules get […]

Misfiling is the quiet way history gets lost without ever being officially “denied.” Instead of burning documents, systems simply misplace them: registries scattered across departments, land records filed under the […]