The Court of Appeal for British Columbia unanimously upheld the criminal contempt conviction against Chief Dsta’hyl on Tuesday. He was found in breach of a court injunction when protesting against a pipeline project in the territories of the Wet’suwet’en First Nation.

At issue in the appeal is whether Chief Dsta’hyl can rely on a defence on the ground that he was acting in accordance with a coexisting Indigenous legal order. Chief Justice Leonard Merchand, writing for the three-judge panel, held that the court would recognize the defense if violating a court injunction is a last resort. As the defendant could have challenged the injunction, the court found that violating the injunction is not necessary to uphold the Wet’suwet’en law of trespass. In his concluding remark, Chief Justice Merchand wrote:

Indigenous law has been denied, supressed, and at times outlawed, for over a century in Canada. Canadian law has a role to play in undoing that harm and is learning to make space for Indigenous legal orders in various ways. But that work does not include allowing parties, Indigenous or non-Indigenous, to breach court orders.

In 2019, the court issued an injunction banning protests in the construction area of the Coastal GasLink pipeline project. Against the injunction, Chief Dsta’hyl organized a blockade as an attempt to stop the construction in 2021. At trial, he contended that the protests were necessary to uphold the traditional Wet’suwet’en law of trespass and fulfil his duties as a chief to preserve and protect their yintah. The trial judge rejected the proposed defense, holding that it was an impermissible collateral attack on the injunction.

When the trial judge found Chief Dsta’hyl guilty of contempt, Amnesty International declared him Canada’s first prisoner of conscience. The group contended that the 60 days of house arrest were an unjustified criminal penalty for his work to protect Indigenous rights, lands and the environment. In 2023, the group also published a report, accusing the Royal Canadian Mounted Police of conducting arbitrary arrests, harassment, intimidation and unlawful surveillance that were incompatible with the right to freedom of peaceful assembly.

Nationwide protests erupted in 2020 against the pipeline project. While Coastal Gaslink claimed that it had reached agreements with 20 elected First Nation councils, the Wet’suwet’en maintained that the Hereditary Chiefs who retained authority in the region had not agreed to the construction. According to Indigenous lawyers Kate Gunn and Bruce McIvor, the elected band councils only had the decision-making authority on reserve lands under the federal Indian Act. The project, also situated in the traditional unceded territories of the Wet’suwet’en beyond the reserve lands, was said to have violated the right to free, prior and informed consent of the Wet’suwet’en.

The province is witnessing an intensifying relationship between the First Nations and the government. In February, the government faced backlashes from the First Nations and civil groups for its attempts to amend an Indigenous rights legislation and appeal court rulings that affirm Indigenous rights.