Book excerpt: Aboriginal Justice and the Charter examines and seeks to resolve the tension between Aboriginal approaches to justice and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Until now, scholars have explored idealized notions of what Aboriginal justice might look like. David Milward strikes out into new territory by asking why Aboriginal communities seek reform and by identifying some of the constitutional barriers in their path. He identifies specific areas of the criminal justice process in which Aboriginal communities may wish to adopt different approaches, tests these approaches against constitutional imperatives, and offers practical proposals for reconciling the various matters at stake. This bold exploration of Aboriginal justice grapples with the difficult question of how Aboriginal justice systems can be fair to their constituents but still comply with the protections guaranteed to all Canadians by the Charter.