Patricia Monture-Angus (September 24, 1958 – November 17, 2010) was a Canadian Mohawk lawyer, activist, educator and author.
Monture-Angus was a member of the Six Nations of the Grand River.[1] She graduated from Queen's University law school in May 1988, and went on to briefly study (but did not graduate) at Osgoode Hall.[2] In August 1988, Monture-Angus filed a suit in Ontario's Supreme Court stating that she should not be required to take an oath of allegiance to the Queen because she is a member of a sovereign nation. According to Sections 4 and 5 of the Public Officers Act, R.S.O. 1980, c. 4 15 as amended, and Rules 53 (4) and 5 1 under the Law Society Act which stated that any person appointed to any office in Ontario or called as a barrister or admitted as a solicitor must declare the following oath:
Monture-Angus argued that she was a member of a sovereign people, the Mohawk Nation, whose sovereignty has never been surrendered or extinguished. This sovereignty has been consistently recognized through treaties and historical custom, both pre-dating Confederation and continuing uninterrupted thereafter.[2] The case never went to court. The Law Society agreed to change its rules and make the oath optional. Monture-Angus was called to the Ontario bar in January 1994.[3]
Monture-Angus taught law at Dalhousie University and at the University of Ottawa's Common Law School[4] before accepting a position in the Department of Native Studies at the University of Saskatchewan in 1994. She was granted tenure in 1998 and promoted to full professor in 1999.[5] She married Denis Angus of the Thunderchild First Nation Cree Nation, of Treaty Six, in 1991. Patricia Monture-Angus died on November 17, 2010, in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.[6]