Department of Justice celebrates 25 year anniversary

By John Christian Hopkins
Diné Bureau

WINDOW ROCK – They started small, with boxes of files stacked along hallways; Friday more than 200 guests and family members came together to celebrate the 25th birthday of the Navajo Department of Justice.

The department “did the job it had to do,” keynote speaker and former President Peterson Zah said.

Zah recalled one of DOJ’s early victories – when it won a $217 million settlement.

“The day after we won, I was the most popular man in Window Rock. I had delegate after delegate come in and tell me they had ideas on how to spend the money,” Zah said.

Still wrestling with what to do with the windfall, Zah was home at Navajo Mountain visiting his mother, a small Navajo woman who never learned to speak English.

“She never went to school, she never had the chance. Mom said, ‘Son, is there a way to treat the money the way we treat the sheep’?”

His mother explained how they started with a few sheep, but while they butchered some every year, the herd never grew; when they decided to stop butchering sheep at every occasion, the heard began to grow, Zah said.

“I said, ‘Aha! She is talking about saving, she is talking about the future’!” Zah recalled.

Permanent Trust Fund
He began to talk to the delegates to gather support for putting the money in several trust funds. The Nation has eight trust funds now, and one – the Permanent Trust Fund – holds nearly $1 billion.

The original money came to the Nation because of the work of DOJ – showing that the department does not only affect Navajo in the legal arena, buts its influence touches all aspects of Navajo life, Zah said.

Arista Yazzie was working at a Chicago law firm when the late Claudeen Bates Arthur first became aware of her. Bates Arthur, the tribe’s first female attorney general, encouraged her to return to the reservation, Yazzie said.

When she finally did return, Bates Arthur showed her around and asked if she was ready to get to work, Yazzie said. Bates Arthur had a vision for the department, a vision she was determined to bring into reality, Yazzie said.

“She was a no-nonsense person who got things done,” Yazzie said. “She spoke with authority, with compassion and with wisdom.”

Her voice cracking, Yazzie recalled Bates Arthur as a friend, a mentor and more: “She was a beautiful person, she was our fearless leader.”

At Yazzie’s urging, the audience rose to pay respects to bates Arthur’s family – including her mother – that were in attendance.

The original attorney general, Larry Aschenbrenner, recalled that one of the first things the fledgling DOJ did was try to “track down every Navajo attorney in the United States .”

Turbulent times
Until DOJ was born, Navajos had to place their faith – and future – in the hands of outside lawyers, most non-native, Zah said.

DOJ wanted to bring Navajo lawyers, and other native attorneys, on board, Aschenbrenner said. While the department should have a native voice, it is important to have a range of people, backgrounds and experiences to draw on, Aschenbrenner said.

Among those recruited by Aschenbrenner were three future attorneys general; Donna Christensen, current AG Louis Denetsosie and current Chief Justice Herb Yazzie.

Christensen served a brief time during the Nation’s most turbulent era – the late 1980s.

“The government was on the verge of collapse in 1989, it was a very, very difficult time,” Christensen recalled.

“I guess it can be called an accomplishment that we survived that turmoil,” Herb Yazzie agreed. He said it was a direct assault on tribal law – and, suddenly, it was coming from within. “That experience made us more resilient, made us stronger. We saw what our job was, and it was to insure orderly change. The rule of law succeeded.”

Using Zah’s sheep analogy, former AG Levon B. Henry said the DOJ was like the sheepdog. The government can shepherd the people forward, but it needs the sheepdog to “look for danger over the hill, the coyote sneaking through the woods.”

Over the years, DOJ has learned to deal better with the outside world, Dennetsosie said.

It is also an essential part of the Navajo Nation, agreed former AG Michael P. Upshaw.

“Our government was tested to the limit,” Upshaw said. During his tenure, from 1987 to 1989, he was fired twice by then Chairman Peter MacDonald; and two months after he took office was when MacDonald had closed down the Navajo Times.

But the storm passed and made the Nation stronger, he said.

“The government needs checks and balances,” Upshaw said. “We need the three branch government to bring order to the Navajo Nation.”

What about DOJ’s future?

“We’ll always have challenges,” said Herb Yazzie.

Dennetsosie agreed. “Change is the only constant.”

Henry thought protecting the tribe’s natural resources will loom as a major issue down the road.