Q26

[bermudask8er7]

Can you explain why E is correct? The first part of the answer looks fine, but I don't understand the last part: "because it misconstrued their relation to existing law." Thanks.

[noah]

This actually was explained by Aileen somewhere else. Here it is:

Let's take a look at 26. Here, we need to go back to that 1984 case - incidentally the same case question #25 asked about. A few things jump out at me right away about that case. First, the author found it excessively conservative so did not approve of its holding. Second, it did not expand aboriginal rights. Looking at this only, let's consider the answer choices:

(A) is unsupported - that is not what the constitutional reforms were about.
(B) is unsupported - the author gives us no reason to believe the court overstepped its authority.
(C) is unsupported - the court was concerned about what rights they had at that time - occupation would not prove the right to sell, as the aboriginal party to the suit wanted.
(D) is completely unsupported.
(E) must be our answer by default. This looks about right too - the author clearly has serious qualms about the decision even if he recognizes it asked most of the right questions.

I hope this helps.

[geverett]

Tough passage. Here are some thoughts I had on it:

(A) ". . . directly contravened the language . . ." How could the courts ruling directly contravene the language of the reforms when the whole passage has been a discussion about how general the language was. The author disagrees with their conservative interpretation, but "directly contravening" is something that would be hard to do when the language is pretty general to begin with.

(B) I agree wholeheartedly with Aileen on this. While the author thinks there has been an enormous burden placed on provincial courts to interpret these laws we cannot infer anywhere in the passage that they are not authorized to rule in these cases. In fact they are definitely authorized to rule on these cases in spite of the fact that the author views this as an "enormous burden".

(C) The only mention we get in the passage of a requirement for documentary evidence before British sovereignty is in lines 31 - 36 in regards to indigenous customs. This requirement is not cited in reference to property rights. Unsupported.

(D) We clearly cannot infer the motivation for the conservative ruling being pressure from politicians or special interests. Get rid of it.

(E) The other four are clearly wrong. What I am curious about in this answer is the phrase "misconstrued their relation to existing law." While we know that the aboriginal group brought their claim on the grounds of "full ownership in the contemporary sense of private property . . ." I am having a hard time seeing the author tip his hat to accepting their claim on these grounds. Perhaps lines 61 - 63 give us the answer when the author says "satisfactory application of the constitutional reforms." Of course I also have a bit of a challenging time with this because "satisfactory" is itself ambiguous.

Thoughts?

[noah]

(E) The other four are clearly wrong. What I am curious about in this answer is the phrase "misconstrued their relation to existing law." While we know that the aboriginal group brought their claim on the grounds of "full ownership in the contemporary sense of private property . . ." I am having a hard time seeing the author tip his hat to accepting their claim on these grounds. Perhaps lines 61 - 63 give us the answer when the author says "satisfactory application of the constitutional reforms." Of course I also have a bit of a challenging time with this because "satisfactory" is itself ambiguous.

Thoughts?

The author writes "Regrettably, it appears that..." which gives us enough to infer that the author thinks the ruling was incorrect, and "satisfactory" makes sense in terms of a different ruling.

The "misconstrued" part is supported by the last sentence, as you note ("satisfactory application..."). Put that together with the reference earlier in that last paragraph to problems interpreting the meaning of "ownership" vis-a-vis the "...contemporary sense of private property..." (lines 45-51) and you get support for that part of (E).

[geverett]

What about the use of "intent" in answer choice E. How do we know that they were aware of the "intent"?

[marcus.v.p.]

Yes, how do we know of the intent?

Thank you!

[austindyoung]

I think the key to answering this question are lines 56-58 (just that sentence).

That is the only explicit statement we get from the author about why this ruling was wrong. We also, of course get his opinion on it, though, as Q 23 asks us about and lines 60-63 refer to.

So, with that textual support, I confidently chose (E) because the other ACs were unsupported- I didn't try to find "intent,"- but it's there!

The author states he hope that the Supreme Court, unlike the provincial ones will be "more insistent upon a satisfactory application of the constitutional reforms."

This tells me that they *probably* understood what the constitution said (and as lines 11-14 tell us) but their application was not favorable.

What's the intent? Lines 1-2 "obtain legal recognition of aboriginal rights." They are doing that, just poorly.


(And PS, I would be thinking "but wait, if they knew the intent, they wouldn't have ruled that way." But, that requires assumptions, I think, that lead us to extrapolate too much from what the passage gives us. They are balancing the intent with application of the law)

Yes, how do we know of the intent?

Thank you!

[deedubbew]

I understand the second clause of E and why it is correct, but what part of the passage supports "The court correctly understood the intent of the constitutional reforms?" in the 1984 case?

[Mab6q]

There's a special place in hell designated for this passage and its awful questions!

[tommywallach]

Ha! I hear ya.