THE BASICS
What you cannot get
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Not the hard things. The basic things. The book of laws. The court’s decisions. The rulings that say what “just cause” means. Here is what each one costs, and where each one stops.
1. The book of laws
The published Navajo Nation Code stops at 2009.
Everything the Council has enacted since then is uncodified — scattered across individual resolutions. The government’s own amendment index begins in 2014. The years 2010 through 2013 appear in no government record at all.
To read the law that governs you, you must: download a 2010 annotated Code · cross-reference a summary sheet that starts in 2014 · fill a four-year hole from a volunteer project · and subscribe to a commercial database for the rest.
2. The court’s own decisions
The Navajo Nation Supreme Court’s opinions are sold in books, $45 to $100 a volume.
Volumes one through nine, at the Diné College Book Store. In its own First Quarter report for Fiscal Year 2023, the Judicial Branch recorded the number of copies sold that quarter:
Six.
The Judicial Branch states it cannot post most statutes online, citing copyright. It publishes the Navajo Nation Bill of Rights and the Fundamental Laws of the Diné. For the rest, it links to Council resolutions.
3. The rulings that decide whether you keep your job
The Navajo Nation Labor Commission does not publish its decisions.
The Commission decides whether a termination had just cause — the standard that governs every worker on the Nation, because the NPEA eliminates at-will employment.
Neither an employee nor an employer can read how that standard has ever been applied.
4. The reasons behind the money
12 N.N.C. § 820(B) requires a budget impact analysis for every appropriation — needs and costs, on objective criteria, including the consequence of failing to fund.
Nothing requires that they be published. Nobody has seen one.
The budget must also carry quantitative performance measures for every program (§ 830). Where a voter may read them, we could not determine.
And who is filling the gap?
Law students. From other schools. In other states.
The most usable index of Navajo Nation law is maintained by the Diné Nihi Kéyah Project — a privately funded, community-based effort of Indian Country Grassroots Support, led by retired Navajo Nation Chief Justice Herb Yazzie, with a board of retired Navajo justices, judges, and land-use advocates. Ninety percent of the team are Diné tribal members living in reservation communities.
Their research is done by interns and externs from Pace University’s Elizabeth Haub School of Law, American University Washington College of Law, the University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law, the University of New Mexico, Yale, and the Diné College Land Grant Office.
In the summer of 2025, a second-year law student at American University was “tasked with updating our index of tribal resolutions amending the Navajo Nation Code, and incorporating uncodified code sections into Titles 3, 6 and 10.”
A law student is doing the Nation’s codification.
What it would cost to fix
| The basic thing | What it would take |
|---|---|
| An up-to-date, indexed Code, free online | A budget line |
| The Supreme Court’s opinions, free online | A decision, and a website |
| The Labor Commission’s rulings | A filing cabinet |
| The budget impact analyses | A resolution |
| The 2010–2013 amendments | Someone to compile them |
Why this is not a small thing
Volunteers read twenty-one of Cal Nez’s candidate interviews and counted every answer. 348 answers.
28 of the 42 candidates named a Navajo law, Title, named Act, or resolution. — Title 2, Title 26, the NBOA, the NPEA, the Local Governance Act.
The number who cited a section of the Navajo Nation Code: zero.
Three cited a section of federal law — Section 17 corporate charters, 25 U.S.C. § 5124. The law that is free, searchable, and online.
That is not a failure of candidates. It is a measurement of the 2009 wall, taken from the inside — by the people running to write the next law.
What to ask
- Will you fund an up-to-date, indexed Navajo Nation Code, and publish it free?
- Will you publish the Supreme Court’s opinions online?
- Will you publish the Labor Commission’s decisions?
- Are budget impact analyses published? Should they be?
None of these requires an election. None has an opponent. Nobody argues that the law should be unreadable.
The full list → Why it matters →
Related: What should be public · The Root Problem · The cases that decided things · Where to read the law
Not affiliated with the Diné Nihi Kéyah Project. We cite their work because it is the best there is.