RIGHTS YOU ALREADY HAVE
What you can do now
≈ 14 min read · or listen, or skim the bold lines
How the People Fix It — the paperwork, signatures & addresses →
Read this before you act on any law cited below
Every citation on this page comes from the published Navajo Nation Code — which stops around 2009–2010 — or from a dated resolution we host. As the Seams in the Law explains, any section may have been amended by a later resolution that no public source consolidates. These citations were checked against the sources available to us as of July 2026; the rights described here existed in the law as published, and we found no later amendment — but no one, including us, can guarantee the current text. If an office tells you a provision has changed, ask them to cite the amending resolution by number and date — that request is itself your right, and their answer (or inability to answer) is information. Nothing on this page is legal advice; for a legal dispute, see Getting Legal Help.
A · Primary source Where a section number is quoted below, a volunteer has read it in the Navajo Nation Code Annotated. How we verify →
Eighteen half-built houses sit on a slab outside Page. Relatives were driven to Phoenix and promised treatment that never came. A grandmother waits years for a home-site lease. A road washes out again. Somebody files a complaint and never hears back.
We have all learned to say the same thing about it: that’s just how it is.
It isn’t.
There is a law — enacted in 1989, still on the books, never repealed — that says the Navajo Nation may not award a contract without public advertisement and bidding. Another says a contract cannot be changed by more than twenty percent of what was bid. Another says every signed contract must be filed where the public can see it.
Not one of those rules is new. Not one requires an election, a lawyer, or permission. They have been sitting in Title 2 for thirty-seven years.
Almost nobody has read them — because the published Navajo Nation Code stops at 2009, the Judicial Branch says copyright prevents posting the statutes, and the best index of Navajo law is kept by law students at two universities off the Nation.
The point of this page
A people who cannot read their own law cannot hold anyone to it — not a contractor, not a doctor, not a delegate, not a president.
So here is the law, in plain words, with the section numbers. Every action below is available tomorrow morning. None of them waits for November.
Case taking too long?
If you filed a labor or ethics matter and it has gone quiet, you do not have to wait in silence. First, confirm what was filed and when — the Right Door guide shows which office should be holding it. Second, go back and demand a status in writing; you have that right, up through the executive branch to the speaker’s office. Third, if what comes back is a dodge, a stall, or a made-up rule, the Runaround names the tactic and what usually works against it. And the standard your case is judged by should be public — today it isn’t, which is fix #2 on What Needs to Happen Now.
1. Ask for the contract. The law says you may.
2 N.N.C. §§ 224–225
§ 224 — every executed contract of the Navajo Nation must be filed with the Central Records Department and with the Office of Contracts and Grants.
§ 225 — “Access to contracts or papers shall be provided to the public by the Central Records Department,” as provided in the Navajo Privacy and Access to Information Act.
That is not a courtesy. It is the law. Any Diné person may request a contract the Nation has signed — for housing, for a road, for a service in their chapter.
How: write to Central Records. Name the contract or the vendor and the approximate date. Ask for the executed contract, all change orders, and the record of advertisement and bidding. Keep a copy of what you sent and when. If you are refused, ask which section authorizes the refusal.
2. If you filed a complaint and never heard back, demand a status
“If you filed an actual intake and you know that it was filed and you never received any type of response, go back and demand for a status as to what happened in that case. Because if these cases are closed out, there should be some type of documentation to say why it was closed out… Go hold them accountable. Go to the office. Go through the legislative branch up through the speaker’s office. Demand for some of these answers. You have that right.”
Put the request in writing. Ask for the case number, the current status, and — if it was closed — the written basis for closing it.
3. Read the law — and know why it is hard
The published Code stops at 2009
To read the law that governs you, you must presently: download a 2010 annotated Code, cross-reference the government’s amendment index that begins in 2014, fill the 2010–2013 gap from a volunteer project staffed by law students off the Nation, and subscribe to a commercial database for the rest. The Judicial Branch states it cannot post most statutes, citing copyright.
Where to start: the Office of Legislative Services publishes the Code and an amendment summary. The Diné Nihi Kéyah Project indexes uncodified amendments and links the resolutions themselves. Both are in Resources.
What to ask any candidate: “Will you fund an up-to-date, indexed codification of the Navajo Nation Code, and publish it free?”
4. Find out whether your chapter is certified
Under the Local Governance Act (Title 26), a certified chapter can run its own land-use planning, issue home- and business-site leases, enter contracts, and appropriate its own funds. A non-certified chapter routes those decisions through Window Rock.
Ask at your chapter house: Are we certified? Which of the five management systems do we have in place? Who audits us, and when were we last audited?
5. Know the clock before you file anything
Filing deadlines are shorter than most people expect, and two of the employment ones run from dates that surprise people. Before you file a complaint about your job, a health facility, or an official — read the deadlines, then talk to an attorney or advocate.
The deadlines → The Right Door — the right door
6. Ask for what is not published
- The Navajo Nation Labor Commission does not publish its decisions. No employee or employer can look up how “just cause” has been applied. Ask candidates: “Would you publish them?”
- Committee recordings and minutes are public business. Ethics & Rules reports to the Law and Order Committee. Case counts, budgets, and staffing are discussed there. Request them.
- Auditor General reports become public. Ask for the ones covering your chapter or program.
7. Read the referendum before November 3
The proposed constitution would supersede Titles 1, 2, and 26. In the draft reviewed for this site, the word “procurement” does not appear, and there is no competitive-bidding requirement or change-order cap. Whether adoption would preserve or remove 2 N.N.C. §§ 223–225 is a legal question this site cannot answer and does not assert.
Read the current official draft on ONGD’s site — not a summary, including ours. Then ask: “Which protections that exist today survive this document, and which do not?”
Constitution 101 — what it says, and what it doesn’t
8. The people can propose a law
The Navajo Nation Election Code provides for initiative (the people propose a law), referendum (the people vote on one), and recall (the people remove an official). These do not require permission from the Council.
One idea already on the record: a whistleblower act. Council candidate Jamie Henio, an attorney, told Cal Nez one is needed — to shield people who report wrongdoing to the public, a regulator, or law enforcement — and that it must be drafted carefully so it cannot be abused. A chapter can pass a resolution asking for it. Chapters have done it before.
9. Show up at the budget hearing
12 N.N.C. §§ 800 and 840(A)
The Budget & Finance Committee holds public hearings at each of the five agencies, and takes testimony on the budget, to plan for funding of services desired by the Navajo People.
How: register at the table, fill out a “Request to Speak” form. You may attach written testimony or a chapter resolution. Committee members may only consider what is on the record — so testimony counts and a private phone call does not.
It works. After the 2025 hearings the Committee reallocated over $15.7 million and corrected a $2.2 million chapter shortfall, citing what it heard in the chapters.
What almost nobody asks for: funding the Auditor General to hire investigators. Filling the Ethics & Rules positions the law requires. Publishing the Code.
The questions to bring to any candidate
- 2 N.N.C. § 223 requires public advertisement and bidding, and caps change orders at 20%. Were those met on the housing contract — and if you don’t know, how would you find out?
- The Auditor General reportedly could not hire investigators. What is that office’s budget, and would you raise it?
- The Ethics & Rules director and presenting officer must be barred attorneys. Are those positions filled?
- The Nation has no general whistleblower act — only § 3767 and § 610(N), both tied to a formal complaint. Would you sponsor one, and what would it protect?
- The published Code stops at 2009. How is a Diné person supposed to read the law that governs them?
- The Labor Commission does not publish its decisions. Would you publish them?
None of this requires an election
A contract can be requested tomorrow. A case status can be demanded tomorrow. A chapter resolution can be introduced at the next meeting. The law that governs the Navajo Nation belongs to the Navajo people, and most of the doors above were built for the average person to walk through.
Related: The Right Door · Title 2 & Title 26 101 · Whistleblowing 101 · Official sources · How we verify
Why these rights matter: The root problem & the to-do list →
The full list: What should be public → — what the law already grants, and what nobody publishes.
Why this law exists
In 1987 a middleman bought a ranch for $26.25 million and sold it to the Navajo Nation five minutes later for $33.4 million. Two years of crisis followed. On July 20, 1989, Arnold Begay and Jimmy Dixon were killed outside the finance building in Window Rock.
Five months later the Council wrote 2 N.N.C. §§ 223–225: advertise the contract, take bids, cap change orders at twenty percent, file it, and let the people see it. In the same resolution they ordered that the law be codified immediately.
The public-access law we finally have a citation for
A · read in the Navajo Nation Code Annotated
12 N.N.C. § 309 — Public access to procurement information:
“Procurement information shall be available to the public to the extent provided by the Navajo Nation Privacy and Access to Information Act, 2 N.N.C. § 81 et seq.”
This site has said for months that the Nation may already have a records law as strong as FOIA, and that nobody had looked. Now we have its citation: 2 N.N.C. § 81.
It has not yet been read. When a volunteer reads it, this page changes. What we don’t know →
And the Auditor General’s powers are larger than anyone says
12 N.N.C. § 5 — Disclosure of records: officials and employees of “all Navajo Nation programs, divisions, entities, chapters, and enterprises shall make their books and records available” to the Auditor General on request, “within a reasonable period of time.”
§ 2(A)(1) lets the office audit “chapters, related Navajo Nation entities and contractors to the Navajo Nation.”
§ 2(A)(4) directs it to assist the Office of the Prosecutor and the Ethics & Rules Office in investigations.
§ 9 — when a program fails to implement a corrective action plan, the Auditor General “shall immediately report that failure” and the Controller shall withhold ten percent of monies payable.
§ 3(B) — the Auditor General is appointed by the Speaker, confirmed by the Council, and “shall serve at the pleasure of the Navajo Nation Council.”
The office that audits the Council serves at the pleasure of the Council — and cannot hire enough investigators to do it.
Why almost nobody uses § 3767
B · From the record A recorded episode of Politics on the Navajo Nation. Quotation from a machine transcript, not yet checked against the recording.
After Cal Nez interviewed the Office of Ethics & Rules, three community members from Teesto asked to come on the programme and answer.
Mona Seamon, Laura Clelland, and Lula Stago — the last a retired school principal — described their own experience of the ethics complaint process.
Asked why people stop coming to chapter meetings, one of them answered:
“You get a complaint that the community people don’t come to meetings. It’s because for many, many years they have gone to the chapter to ask for what they need and they were labeled as troublemakers. So it’s better that they just stay away and try to manage their life.”
That sentence names no one and accuses no one. It describes a chill.
It also explains a great deal. Why chapter meetings are empty. Why almost nobody testifies at the budget hearings held at all five agencies. Why the Auditor General’s line never gets funded.
And why a retaliation provision that has existed since 1988 is almost never invoked.
Council candidate Jamie Henio, an attorney, told the same programme that people are “scared to say anything because they’re being told, don’t do that, you’re gonna lose your job.” Three women from Teesto described what that fear looks like from inside it.
They came in response
They did not appear at random. They asked to be heard after Cal Nez interviewed the Office of Ethics & Rules itself — its Interim Director and staff — and after his interview with the office’s former Director.
That is what a right of reply looks like when it runs the other way. An office gave its account. Community members answered on the same programme.