This is from the Globe and Mail. Other articles have pointed out much more clearly that the interrogation itself was illegal. In spite of the pleas of Canadian lawyers and being the only country not to intervene on behalf of its citizens imprisoned in Guantanamo Harper does nothing. Canada has reduced itself to the level of the U.S. That is not compliment. Fortunately, there are still many in the U.S. and Canada who recognise the irony of two countries who claim that they stand for human rights nevertheless supporting a legal process which resembles the Star Chambers of old. It is fortunate that we still have some legal basis to challenge the government. The U.S. lawyers for Khadr have also done excellent work on his behalf. Whether it will make any difference at all is in some doubt. When the process failed the U.S. earlier and charges were thrown out because the accused had not been shown to be enemy combatants the authorities just rewrote the script.
Top court questions Ottawa's motive on Khadr file
Justices pepper federal government on how and why it passed on sensitive information to U.S. prosecutors
KIRK MAKIN
JUSTICE REPORTER
March 27, 2008
OTTAWA -- The federal government's motives in the Omar Khadr terrorism case came under sustained fire from the Supreme Court of Canada yesterday, as a government lawyer sought to justify its suppression of evidence.
Observers in the packed courtroom had barely settled into their seats for the historic case, when several judges began to pepper Justice Department lawyer Robert Frater with questions as to how and why sensitive information was passed on to U.S. prosecutors.
They challenged Mr. Frater to reveal whether Canada sought restrictions on how the United States could use the information - gleaned during three interrogations that Canadian security agents held with Mr. Khadr in 2002.
"Obviously it was shared for a purpose," Mr. Justice Ian Binnie pressed Mr. Frater. "You are the one who knew how it was shared, and whether there were restrictions."
Mr. Khadr was captured by U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan on July 27, 2002, when he was 15. He was charged with murdering U.S. Army Sergeant Christopher Speer by throwing a hand grenade, and has been held in the U.S. military detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, since October of 2002.
Bolstered by legal intervenors, Mr. Khadr's defence team is trying to show that he was illegally interrogated, and that his responses became the underpinning for the charges.
In one of several harsh indictments of the government yesterday, B.C. Civil Liberties Association lawyer Joseph Arvay said the affair is a "classic case" of why the courts must come to the aid of unpopular citizens abandoned by their government.
"We are dealing with an individual who is in this black hole in Guantanamo Bay; for whom the U.S. political process doesn't work; who may be seen in Canada as a pariah; and for whom the Canadian political process doesn't work," Mr. Arvay said.
Mr. Frater insisted that the interrogation was a routine security procedure, and that it would be an unwarranted leap of logic to assume that it played a role in the U.S. decision to prosecute.
But several judges prodded him to explain the way the information was passed to the United States - rather than making the Khadr defence team and the court itself try to guess what took place.
"The issue is: Did it have an impact on the prosecution?" Madam Justice Rosalie Abella told Mr. Frater.
"Here you have an opportunity to tell us," Mr. Justice Morris Fish said. "It is not too late. If there is information the court needs - or to put it less urgently, ought to have - I don't understand your concern about giving evidence. Counsel, over the years, have many times given admissions of fact."
But Mr. Frater insisted, "I would be committing exactly the same sin I've accused the other side of committing - going outside the court record to give evidence."
Mr. Frater portrayed Canada as being little more than a bystander in the case. He said that if Mr. Khadr wants to obtain transcripts of his interrogation - information he ought to have no trouble remembering, anyway - then he should request it in the U.S. court system.
Mr. Frater also argued that ordering the disclosure of evidence to Mr. Khadr would create a dangerous precedent that would enable any Canadian charged abroad to make disclosure demands.
In a submission for the Criminal Lawyers Association, lawyer John Norris said the government cannot shirk its responsibilities under the Charter of Rights just because its officials are outside the border.
"Whether or not Canadian officials took the Charter with them when they went to Guantanamo Bay, it was undoubtedly waiting for them when they got home," he told the court.
After the court reserved its decision in the appeal, Dennis Edney, a lawyer for Mr. Khadr, told reporters that the entire case has begun to unravel as more information seeps out involving alleged torture Mr. Khadr suffered and the unreliability of the evidence against him.
"What does it take for our government to right this wrong?" he asked.
Mr. Edney said that part of the problem Mr. Khadr faces is public outrage over pro-al-Qaeda statements from his family members in the past.
"It's a shame that Omar Khadr should suffer because of his family ... and that Canadians can't distinguish between a man suffering in horrible conditions in Guantanamo Bay and family members who say stupid things."
Showing posts with label Canada supreme court. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Canada supreme court. Show all posts
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Saturday, May 19, 2007
Canadian Supreme Court authorizes secret trials, arbitrary, indefinite detention
This is from the World Socialist Web Site. If it is at all accurate the situation in Canada is worse even than I thought. Even though some aspects of the legislation on security certificates must be changed because of conflict with rights legislation as this article points out the decision still alows for secret trials etc. The earlier protections that required the certificates to be approved by the SIRC have somehow been abandoned. This is the first time I even heard about this. The mainstream press really tells us little.
I notice that the Iacobucci inquiry has generated absolutely no press accounts lately. No doubt it has not released anything. I fear that the whole inquiry will come to nothing unless more happens in public or is released to the public.
Canada’s Supreme Court authorizes secret trials and arbitrary, indefinite detention
By François Tremblay
12 May 2007
Use this version to print | Send this link by email | Email the author
This article was posted in French on April 26, 2007
Canada’s Supreme Court, in a February 28 ruling on the constitutionality of security certificates, unanimously upheld the state’s prerogative to violate fundamental democratic rights enshrined in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms in the name of ensuring “public security.”
Although the court ruled that the government does not have the right to carry out secret trials (one of the most controversial aspects of the security certificate process), its ruling, taken as a whole, constitutes not a blow against the attack on civil liberties, being carried by Canada’s ruling elite on in the name of the war on terrorism, but rather an attempt to give a veneer of legality to the overturning of longstanding democratic and judicial principles.
The issue before Canada’s highest court was the legality of the security certificate—a
ministerial decree that orders the indefinite detention and deportation of a noncitizen, whether visitor, refugee or landed immigrant, labeled by security agencies a potential threat to national security. Such a decree can be issued without the slightest proof substantiating the alleged threat.
In 2005 the Federal Court ruled security certificates constitutional and upheld the government’s right to keep entire categories of evidence secret from the public, persons named in the security certificates, and their legal counsel, on the grounds of both national security and diplomatic relations, i.e., keeping good relations with foreign states, including authoritarian regimes that practice torture and use it to gather intelligence.
It was this decision that three persons imprisoned indefinitely under national security certificates appealed. Adil Charkaoui, Hassan Almrei and Mohamed Harkat petitioned the Supreme Court to declare security certificates unconstitutional because they violate the guarantees in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms to a swift trial and to the right to life, liberty and protection of the person and protection from arbitrary detention and cruel and unusual punishment.
The minister of public safety had used national security certificates to arrest Charkaoui in 2003, Almrei in 2002, and Harkat in 2001, claiming that there were grounds to suspect that they had terrorist ties. Mahmoud Jaballah and Mohammad Mahjoub were similarly arrested and detained.
Charkaoui was released in 2005 and Harkat in 2006, but they remain subject to severe restrictions, including the continuous wearing of a GPS bracelet and house arrest. Jaballah and Mahjoub were released in 2007 after seven years incarceration, and likewise are still subject to house arrest. Almrei is the only one still imprisoned in Millhaven Penitentiary, a maximum security prison, in Kingston, Ontario. All five now face deportation to their countries of origin where, the government admits, they potentially face torture and death.
The origins of the security certificate program
Although Canada’s immigration law has contained a provision for security certificates for some 30 years, fundamental changes in the rules governing them were made in the Anti-Terrorist Act adopted by the then Liberal government following the September 2001 terrorist attacks.
Before the adoption of the law in December 2001, the solicitor-general had to make a case before the Security Intelligence Review Commission (SIRC)—a civilian “watchdog” agency set up by parliament to oversee the activities of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS)—explaining why the noncitizen represented such a threat to public safety that they should be detained without charge. SIRC was mandated with examining the documents presented by the minister and obligated to send the affected person a “summary of the facts at hand.” It also had to provide the prospective “security certificate” detainee, as well as the minister, with a copy of its findings. In the event a security certificate was issued against an individual, he or she then had the right to contest this decision, with their legal counsel present, before a tribunal whose job was to rule on the admissibility and the secrecy of the government’s evidence.
The abolition of this procedure has effectively given the government the power to kidnap and throw into prison indefinitely any person its designates a security risk, since this procedure is employed when the state does not have sufficient evidence to lay charges and the law specifically empowers the government to keep the evidence on which it has labeled someone a threat to Canada’s national security secret.
The new law does require that a Federal Court judge attest that the government has acted reasonably in issuing a security certificate against a given individual. But, despite the potentially drastic consequences for the designated person, this examination is carried out in the absence of the detainee and his/her lawyer. The government, i.e., the accuser, has no obligation to show the judge all of the evidence at its disposal; it alone gets to decide what is disclosed, and the government is under no obligation to prove anything. It simply has to convince the judge that it has reasonable grounds to suspect that the individual is a potential threat to Canada’s security—in other words, that CSIS or another police or intelligence agency deems it so.
There is no appeal of the judge’s decision nor is there any other form of judicial review. Once the certificate has been judged “reasonable,” the law declares the deportation order to apply immediately, without regard to the risk of torture. In 2002 the Supreme Court ruled that in exceptional cases someone can de deported even if the deportee faces a high risk of torture or of death.
Secret proceedings
The unanimous decision by the nine judges of the Supreme Court on the constitutionality of security certificates was read by Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin. Her brief used the pretext of the war on terrorism to advance a constitutional basis for the assault carried out by the Canadian ruling class on democratic rights. “One of the most basic responsibilities of a government is to assure the security of its citizens,” she affirmed.
McLachlin admitted that keeping the state’s evidence hidden from a security-certificate detainee and the secret character of the Federal Court’s reviews of security certificates violates the right to life, liberty and security inscribed in the Charter, and that this violation cannot be justified. But in the same breath, she added that the demands of security can require that evidence remain secret. To solve this thorny dilemma she, on behalf of the whole court, suggested the government adopt a procedure used in Britain, where special security-cleared lawyers act in the name of detainees in secret hearings.
The Court acknowledged that the holding of secret hearings and trials violates the basic democratic principle that an accused facing imprisonment must know the crime of which he or she is accused. McLachlin further states: “The judge is ... not in a position to compensate for the lack of informed scrutiny, challenge and counter-evidence that a person familiar with the case could bring. Such scrutiny is the whole point of the principle that a person whose liberty is in jeopardy must know the case to meet. Here that principle has not merely been limited; it has been effectively gutted. How can one meet a case one does not know?”
Yet, having concluded that because they are held in secret, the federal court’s hearings into the validity of security certificates are unconstitutional, the chief justice was quick to come forward with arguments as to why the state should be permitted to prevent the public, the detainee and their legal counsel from knowing the evidence on which the state has determined an individual a national security threat: “The imperative of the protection of society may preclude [revealing the state’s evidence]. Information may be obtained from other countries or from informers on condition that it not be disclosed. Or it may simply be so critical that it cannot be disclosed without risking public security. That is a reality of our modern world.”
In other words, respect for fundamental rights is incompatible with the struggle against terrorism and the defense of national security.
Citing the British precedent, Canada’s Supreme Court recommends security-cleared lawyers act in secret proceedings on behalf of persons deemed security threats and in that role seek to test the state’s evidence.
But this practice is widely contested in Britain, including by many of the special advocates themselves, who charge that the legal restraints under which they must act effectively make them auxiliaries of the state.
An April 2005 report published in the United Kingdom by the Constitutional Affairs Committee of the House of Commons pointed to the severe disabilities under which the special advocates function. As Canada’s Supreme Court admitted in its own judgment: “The Committee listed three important disadvantages faced by special advocates: (1) once they have seen the confidential material, they cannot, subject to narrow exceptions, take instructions from the appellant or the appellant’s counsel; (2) they lack the resources of an ordinary legal team, for the purpose of conducting in secret a full defense; and (3) they have no power to call witnesses.”
In other words, they are legally prevented from mounting a defence on behalf of those they ostensibly represent: They can’t discuss the state’s allegations with the person named a security threat so as to test the veracity of the state’s evidence, nor can they call witnesses to refute claims made by the state.
But having cited the objections made by the British special advocates, Canada’s judges wring their hands, effectively arguing that this practice constitutes a reasonable balance between the rights of the individual and the needs of the state.
Yet the disabilities under which the British special advocates must function go right to the heart of what the Supreme Court denounced when it declared the secret trials to be illegal—the denial of the detainee’s right to know the charges and the state’s evidence against him and of the right to contest and refute the veracity of that evidence, by having his legal counsel interrogate government witnesses and present counter-evidence and witnesses.
Cruel treatment
In its February ruling, the Supreme Court also found that it is acceptable to detain a person indefinitely without charge or even knowledge of the reasons for his detention and with the prospect of being expelled to a country which practices torture. Canada’s highest court was only ready to admit that in certain circumstances indefinite detention without charge may constitute cruel and unusual punishment.
The five security-certificate detainees were long held in atrocious conditions of isolation and cold, without access to their lawyers, to their families, to necessary medical treatment or to conditions normally offered to every Canadian prisoner. They carried out several hunger strikes, simply to gain access to medical care and television. (See “Prisoners continue hunger strike at Canada’s Guantanamo”)
A special prison was built to house the detainees in the middle of the maximum security Millhaven Penitentiary in Kingston. It was nicknamed “Guantanamo North,” a reference to the infamous American prison in Cuba’s Guantanamo Bay, that other black hole where so-called terrorists dubbed “illegal combatants” are rotting.
The conditions of detention at Millhaven are so bad that a judge felt compelled to make the following comments in response to an appeal for release by Mohammad Mahjoub, the oldest detainee, who was in the 83rd day of hunger strike after being jailed for seven years, cut off from his family and in poor health: “The applicant today is an ailing and aging man preoccupied with his health and the lack of contact with his family apart from telephone calls and occasional visits.” The judge added that Mahjoub’s detention “could reasonably be described as indefinite.”
The indifference of the elite towards democratic principles
The Supreme Court has granted the government one year to modify the law governing security certificates. In the meantime, the Court has explicitly allowed the government to use the existing procedure against other persons or against the plaintiffs. The Courts adds that if the government has not modified the law within one year, it will be up to the plaintiffs to appeal to the Court to rescind the security certificates.
The corporate media has presented this judgment as a victory for democratic rights and a blow to the holding of secret trials, while at the same time expressing satisfaction that the Supreme Court did not limit the capacity of the state to carry out the “fight against terrorism.”
The New York Times in a February 25 article hailed the ruling as proof that in Canada the fight against terrorism is being waged while respecting individual rights.
The legal commentator for the Quebec newspaper La Presse, Yves Boisvert, stated approvingly in a February 26 opinion piece that the judgment “recognized the right of the State to take exceptional measures against foreign citizens deemed merely suspect in the name of public security,” and that the decision “does not at all hamper our ability to struggle against terrorism, and so even the Conservative government can live with this.”
The Globe and Mail, Canada’s business paper, welcomed the “pragmatic solution” the Court has come up with to resolve a reputed moral dilemma in this “age of terror.” Underlining that the Court authorized the indefinite detention of noncitizens suspected of terrorism, the Globe stated, “Although the Court criticized the controversial rules of the secret trials, these can easily be repaired.” Its editorial emphasized that “the long-term impact of the decision will preserve the ability of the government to protect Canadians from terrorists.”
The Harper Conservative government, for its part, quickly accepted the Court’s ruling and announced that a new bill that follows the Court’s stipulations will be presented to parliament forthwith.
Authored by the chief justice, the Supreme Court’s decision in the national security certificate case represents a sharp rightward turn. It constitutes a green light for the assault on democratic rights and longstanding juridical principles that the Canadian ruling elite is carrying out under the pretext of the fight against terrorism.
See Also:
As fatalities mount, Canada’s Conservative government moves to extend Afghan intervention
[14 April 2007]
Ottawa’s “apology” to Maher Arar
A fig-leaf for the assault on democratic rights
[6 February 2007]
Maher Arar’s ordeal, the Harper government and the assault on democratic rights
[5 October 2006]
The WSWS invites your comments.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I notice that the Iacobucci inquiry has generated absolutely no press accounts lately. No doubt it has not released anything. I fear that the whole inquiry will come to nothing unless more happens in public or is released to the public.
Canada’s Supreme Court authorizes secret trials and arbitrary, indefinite detention
By François Tremblay
12 May 2007
Use this version to print | Send this link by email | Email the author
This article was posted in French on April 26, 2007
Canada’s Supreme Court, in a February 28 ruling on the constitutionality of security certificates, unanimously upheld the state’s prerogative to violate fundamental democratic rights enshrined in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms in the name of ensuring “public security.”
Although the court ruled that the government does not have the right to carry out secret trials (one of the most controversial aspects of the security certificate process), its ruling, taken as a whole, constitutes not a blow against the attack on civil liberties, being carried by Canada’s ruling elite on in the name of the war on terrorism, but rather an attempt to give a veneer of legality to the overturning of longstanding democratic and judicial principles.
The issue before Canada’s highest court was the legality of the security certificate—a
ministerial decree that orders the indefinite detention and deportation of a noncitizen, whether visitor, refugee or landed immigrant, labeled by security agencies a potential threat to national security. Such a decree can be issued without the slightest proof substantiating the alleged threat.
In 2005 the Federal Court ruled security certificates constitutional and upheld the government’s right to keep entire categories of evidence secret from the public, persons named in the security certificates, and their legal counsel, on the grounds of both national security and diplomatic relations, i.e., keeping good relations with foreign states, including authoritarian regimes that practice torture and use it to gather intelligence.
It was this decision that three persons imprisoned indefinitely under national security certificates appealed. Adil Charkaoui, Hassan Almrei and Mohamed Harkat petitioned the Supreme Court to declare security certificates unconstitutional because they violate the guarantees in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms to a swift trial and to the right to life, liberty and protection of the person and protection from arbitrary detention and cruel and unusual punishment.
The minister of public safety had used national security certificates to arrest Charkaoui in 2003, Almrei in 2002, and Harkat in 2001, claiming that there were grounds to suspect that they had terrorist ties. Mahmoud Jaballah and Mohammad Mahjoub were similarly arrested and detained.
Charkaoui was released in 2005 and Harkat in 2006, but they remain subject to severe restrictions, including the continuous wearing of a GPS bracelet and house arrest. Jaballah and Mahjoub were released in 2007 after seven years incarceration, and likewise are still subject to house arrest. Almrei is the only one still imprisoned in Millhaven Penitentiary, a maximum security prison, in Kingston, Ontario. All five now face deportation to their countries of origin where, the government admits, they potentially face torture and death.
The origins of the security certificate program
Although Canada’s immigration law has contained a provision for security certificates for some 30 years, fundamental changes in the rules governing them were made in the Anti-Terrorist Act adopted by the then Liberal government following the September 2001 terrorist attacks.
Before the adoption of the law in December 2001, the solicitor-general had to make a case before the Security Intelligence Review Commission (SIRC)—a civilian “watchdog” agency set up by parliament to oversee the activities of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS)—explaining why the noncitizen represented such a threat to public safety that they should be detained without charge. SIRC was mandated with examining the documents presented by the minister and obligated to send the affected person a “summary of the facts at hand.” It also had to provide the prospective “security certificate” detainee, as well as the minister, with a copy of its findings. In the event a security certificate was issued against an individual, he or she then had the right to contest this decision, with their legal counsel present, before a tribunal whose job was to rule on the admissibility and the secrecy of the government’s evidence.
The abolition of this procedure has effectively given the government the power to kidnap and throw into prison indefinitely any person its designates a security risk, since this procedure is employed when the state does not have sufficient evidence to lay charges and the law specifically empowers the government to keep the evidence on which it has labeled someone a threat to Canada’s national security secret.
The new law does require that a Federal Court judge attest that the government has acted reasonably in issuing a security certificate against a given individual. But, despite the potentially drastic consequences for the designated person, this examination is carried out in the absence of the detainee and his/her lawyer. The government, i.e., the accuser, has no obligation to show the judge all of the evidence at its disposal; it alone gets to decide what is disclosed, and the government is under no obligation to prove anything. It simply has to convince the judge that it has reasonable grounds to suspect that the individual is a potential threat to Canada’s security—in other words, that CSIS or another police or intelligence agency deems it so.
There is no appeal of the judge’s decision nor is there any other form of judicial review. Once the certificate has been judged “reasonable,” the law declares the deportation order to apply immediately, without regard to the risk of torture. In 2002 the Supreme Court ruled that in exceptional cases someone can de deported even if the deportee faces a high risk of torture or of death.
Secret proceedings
The unanimous decision by the nine judges of the Supreme Court on the constitutionality of security certificates was read by Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin. Her brief used the pretext of the war on terrorism to advance a constitutional basis for the assault carried out by the Canadian ruling class on democratic rights. “One of the most basic responsibilities of a government is to assure the security of its citizens,” she affirmed.
McLachlin admitted that keeping the state’s evidence hidden from a security-certificate detainee and the secret character of the Federal Court’s reviews of security certificates violates the right to life, liberty and security inscribed in the Charter, and that this violation cannot be justified. But in the same breath, she added that the demands of security can require that evidence remain secret. To solve this thorny dilemma she, on behalf of the whole court, suggested the government adopt a procedure used in Britain, where special security-cleared lawyers act in the name of detainees in secret hearings.
The Court acknowledged that the holding of secret hearings and trials violates the basic democratic principle that an accused facing imprisonment must know the crime of which he or she is accused. McLachlin further states: “The judge is ... not in a position to compensate for the lack of informed scrutiny, challenge and counter-evidence that a person familiar with the case could bring. Such scrutiny is the whole point of the principle that a person whose liberty is in jeopardy must know the case to meet. Here that principle has not merely been limited; it has been effectively gutted. How can one meet a case one does not know?”
Yet, having concluded that because they are held in secret, the federal court’s hearings into the validity of security certificates are unconstitutional, the chief justice was quick to come forward with arguments as to why the state should be permitted to prevent the public, the detainee and their legal counsel from knowing the evidence on which the state has determined an individual a national security threat: “The imperative of the protection of society may preclude [revealing the state’s evidence]. Information may be obtained from other countries or from informers on condition that it not be disclosed. Or it may simply be so critical that it cannot be disclosed without risking public security. That is a reality of our modern world.”
In other words, respect for fundamental rights is incompatible with the struggle against terrorism and the defense of national security.
Citing the British precedent, Canada’s Supreme Court recommends security-cleared lawyers act in secret proceedings on behalf of persons deemed security threats and in that role seek to test the state’s evidence.
But this practice is widely contested in Britain, including by many of the special advocates themselves, who charge that the legal restraints under which they must act effectively make them auxiliaries of the state.
An April 2005 report published in the United Kingdom by the Constitutional Affairs Committee of the House of Commons pointed to the severe disabilities under which the special advocates function. As Canada’s Supreme Court admitted in its own judgment: “The Committee listed three important disadvantages faced by special advocates: (1) once they have seen the confidential material, they cannot, subject to narrow exceptions, take instructions from the appellant or the appellant’s counsel; (2) they lack the resources of an ordinary legal team, for the purpose of conducting in secret a full defense; and (3) they have no power to call witnesses.”
In other words, they are legally prevented from mounting a defence on behalf of those they ostensibly represent: They can’t discuss the state’s allegations with the person named a security threat so as to test the veracity of the state’s evidence, nor can they call witnesses to refute claims made by the state.
But having cited the objections made by the British special advocates, Canada’s judges wring their hands, effectively arguing that this practice constitutes a reasonable balance between the rights of the individual and the needs of the state.
Yet the disabilities under which the British special advocates must function go right to the heart of what the Supreme Court denounced when it declared the secret trials to be illegal—the denial of the detainee’s right to know the charges and the state’s evidence against him and of the right to contest and refute the veracity of that evidence, by having his legal counsel interrogate government witnesses and present counter-evidence and witnesses.
Cruel treatment
In its February ruling, the Supreme Court also found that it is acceptable to detain a person indefinitely without charge or even knowledge of the reasons for his detention and with the prospect of being expelled to a country which practices torture. Canada’s highest court was only ready to admit that in certain circumstances indefinite detention without charge may constitute cruel and unusual punishment.
The five security-certificate detainees were long held in atrocious conditions of isolation and cold, without access to their lawyers, to their families, to necessary medical treatment or to conditions normally offered to every Canadian prisoner. They carried out several hunger strikes, simply to gain access to medical care and television. (See “Prisoners continue hunger strike at Canada’s Guantanamo”)
A special prison was built to house the detainees in the middle of the maximum security Millhaven Penitentiary in Kingston. It was nicknamed “Guantanamo North,” a reference to the infamous American prison in Cuba’s Guantanamo Bay, that other black hole where so-called terrorists dubbed “illegal combatants” are rotting.
The conditions of detention at Millhaven are so bad that a judge felt compelled to make the following comments in response to an appeal for release by Mohammad Mahjoub, the oldest detainee, who was in the 83rd day of hunger strike after being jailed for seven years, cut off from his family and in poor health: “The applicant today is an ailing and aging man preoccupied with his health and the lack of contact with his family apart from telephone calls and occasional visits.” The judge added that Mahjoub’s detention “could reasonably be described as indefinite.”
The indifference of the elite towards democratic principles
The Supreme Court has granted the government one year to modify the law governing security certificates. In the meantime, the Court has explicitly allowed the government to use the existing procedure against other persons or against the plaintiffs. The Courts adds that if the government has not modified the law within one year, it will be up to the plaintiffs to appeal to the Court to rescind the security certificates.
The corporate media has presented this judgment as a victory for democratic rights and a blow to the holding of secret trials, while at the same time expressing satisfaction that the Supreme Court did not limit the capacity of the state to carry out the “fight against terrorism.”
The New York Times in a February 25 article hailed the ruling as proof that in Canada the fight against terrorism is being waged while respecting individual rights.
The legal commentator for the Quebec newspaper La Presse, Yves Boisvert, stated approvingly in a February 26 opinion piece that the judgment “recognized the right of the State to take exceptional measures against foreign citizens deemed merely suspect in the name of public security,” and that the decision “does not at all hamper our ability to struggle against terrorism, and so even the Conservative government can live with this.”
The Globe and Mail, Canada’s business paper, welcomed the “pragmatic solution” the Court has come up with to resolve a reputed moral dilemma in this “age of terror.” Underlining that the Court authorized the indefinite detention of noncitizens suspected of terrorism, the Globe stated, “Although the Court criticized the controversial rules of the secret trials, these can easily be repaired.” Its editorial emphasized that “the long-term impact of the decision will preserve the ability of the government to protect Canadians from terrorists.”
The Harper Conservative government, for its part, quickly accepted the Court’s ruling and announced that a new bill that follows the Court’s stipulations will be presented to parliament forthwith.
Authored by the chief justice, the Supreme Court’s decision in the national security certificate case represents a sharp rightward turn. It constitutes a green light for the assault on democratic rights and longstanding juridical principles that the Canadian ruling elite is carrying out under the pretext of the fight against terrorism.
See Also:
As fatalities mount, Canada’s Conservative government moves to extend Afghan intervention
[14 April 2007]
Ottawa’s “apology” to Maher Arar
A fig-leaf for the assault on democratic rights
[6 February 2007]
Maher Arar’s ordeal, the Harper government and the assault on democratic rights
[5 October 2006]
The WSWS invites your comments.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thursday, March 15, 2007
Charkaoui granted another appeal to Supreme Court
The most obvious problem with these national security cases is that the prosecution can claim almost all evidence as classified so that the defence lawyer cannot even see it. Here it seems it is not only classified it was destroyed and only summaries kept. What a travesty of justice these cases are. Welcome to the new legal regime where one has no right to see the evidence against you and to question it.
Supreme Court will hear Adil Charkaoui's appeal
Last Updated: Thursday, March 15, 2007 | 4:52 PM ET
CBC News
A Montreal man accused of being a terrorist who recently won a landmark ruling on security certificates at the Supreme Court of Canada will now get a chance to take a second case to the country's top court.
The court has agreed to hear an appeal from Moroccan-born Adil Charkaoui, who is contesting the security certificate proceedings brought against him by the federal government on the grounds the Canadian Security Intelligence Service tainted evidence brought against him.
(CBC) The appeal grant comes on the heels of a historic Supreme Court ruling that has left Charkaoui in legal limbo. In February 2007, the country's highest court struck down security certificates, ruling they violate the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Charkaoui, who was detained under a certificate for two years, was one of three men who won the ruling. The court suspended its judgment for a year to allow time for the federal government to rewrite its security laws, leaving the certificates in place until that point.
Charkaoui's security certificate proceedings are also still pending, with no sign from Ottawa that it will formally withdraw its case against him.
With the appeal granted by the Supreme Court on Thursday, Charkaoui will get another chance to close the case against him.
His lawyers will ask the country's top court to stop the security certificate hearing on the grounds his rights were violated and he was denied due process because of how CSIS handled evidence collected on him.
Records destroyed, summaries kept
Most of the evidence used in the security certificate case was based on notes and recordings of various interviews Charkaoui gave to CSIS investigators four years ago. The evidence was classified and not released to his defence lawyer, Dominique Larochelle.
In 2005, during a bail review hearing, CSIS investigators testified they destroyed records of their interviews with him, but kept summaries, as policy dictates at the security agency. That compromised Charkaoui's rights, Larochelle told CBC. "If the proof is altered, the case is biased."
Charkaoui contends the missing notes and tapes would have helped him mount a defence to establish his innocence and strike down the security certificate.
Charkaoui's supporters say until the Supreme Court ruling is enacted, he could, in theory, still be ordered to leave the country.
Under the certificate, authorities can order him deported, even though that hasn't yet been done.
Larochelle first appealed the proceedings two years ago on the grounds that evidence used against Charkaoui was tainted. Her request was turned down by the Federal Court, and by the Federal Court of Appeal in February 2006.
The proceedings were suspended in March 2005 pending a second unrelated appeal to the federal minister of immigration. Charkaoui is seeking assurance he would be protected if he were to be deported to his native Morocco. The minister has not yet issued a decision.
Charkaoui has repeatedly denied any terrorist activity, even as CSIS produced evidence it alleged proves he was connected to the Moroccan Islamic Combat Group, which is linked to al-Qaeda.
Larochelle is also contesting that evidence, arguing it was introduced after the security certificate was issued against her client.
Charkaoui was granted bail under strict conditions in February 2005.
Supreme Court will hear Adil Charkaoui's appeal
Last Updated: Thursday, March 15, 2007 | 4:52 PM ET
CBC News
A Montreal man accused of being a terrorist who recently won a landmark ruling on security certificates at the Supreme Court of Canada will now get a chance to take a second case to the country's top court.
The court has agreed to hear an appeal from Moroccan-born Adil Charkaoui, who is contesting the security certificate proceedings brought against him by the federal government on the grounds the Canadian Security Intelligence Service tainted evidence brought against him.
(CBC) The appeal grant comes on the heels of a historic Supreme Court ruling that has left Charkaoui in legal limbo. In February 2007, the country's highest court struck down security certificates, ruling they violate the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Charkaoui, who was detained under a certificate for two years, was one of three men who won the ruling. The court suspended its judgment for a year to allow time for the federal government to rewrite its security laws, leaving the certificates in place until that point.
Charkaoui's security certificate proceedings are also still pending, with no sign from Ottawa that it will formally withdraw its case against him.
With the appeal granted by the Supreme Court on Thursday, Charkaoui will get another chance to close the case against him.
His lawyers will ask the country's top court to stop the security certificate hearing on the grounds his rights were violated and he was denied due process because of how CSIS handled evidence collected on him.
Records destroyed, summaries kept
Most of the evidence used in the security certificate case was based on notes and recordings of various interviews Charkaoui gave to CSIS investigators four years ago. The evidence was classified and not released to his defence lawyer, Dominique Larochelle.
In 2005, during a bail review hearing, CSIS investigators testified they destroyed records of their interviews with him, but kept summaries, as policy dictates at the security agency. That compromised Charkaoui's rights, Larochelle told CBC. "If the proof is altered, the case is biased."
Charkaoui contends the missing notes and tapes would have helped him mount a defence to establish his innocence and strike down the security certificate.
Charkaoui's supporters say until the Supreme Court ruling is enacted, he could, in theory, still be ordered to leave the country.
Under the certificate, authorities can order him deported, even though that hasn't yet been done.
Larochelle first appealed the proceedings two years ago on the grounds that evidence used against Charkaoui was tainted. Her request was turned down by the Federal Court, and by the Federal Court of Appeal in February 2006.
The proceedings were suspended in March 2005 pending a second unrelated appeal to the federal minister of immigration. Charkaoui is seeking assurance he would be protected if he were to be deported to his native Morocco. The minister has not yet issued a decision.
Charkaoui has repeatedly denied any terrorist activity, even as CSIS produced evidence it alleged proves he was connected to the Moroccan Islamic Combat Group, which is linked to al-Qaeda.
Larochelle is also contesting that evidence, arguing it was introduced after the security certificate was issued against her client.
Charkaoui was granted bail under strict conditions in February 2005.
Sunday, February 25, 2007
Detainees react to Supreme Court ruling on Security Certificates
Some people have pointed out that the detainees are "free" to leave Canada but this freedom is to go to countries where they face torture or perhaps even death.
Detainee ruling comes after 'years of hell'
Last Updated: Friday, February 23, 2007 | 3:37 PM ET
CBC News
Relatives of the men arrested under the federal government's national security certificates praised a high court ruling Friday ordering a new system, while expressing fear that their legal battles are far from over.
The Supreme Court of Canada ruled unanimously the certificate system is unconstitutional and has given the federal government one year to rewrite the law.
"It's the happiest day of my life," said Mohamed Harkat, who was interviewed by CBC Newsworld from his home in Ottawa.
He said he was "crying for 3½ years in jail" as he continued asking authorities what evidence they had against him.
Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin, writing for the court, said the process of hearing such cases behind closed doors without a lawyer for the accused present is a violation of fundamental justice.
The court suggested Parliament could solve the problem by allowing special security-cleared lawyers to attend the hearings to challenge the evidence and protect the rights of the accused.
Continue Article
Harkat was recently released on bail and remains under house arrest. He can leave his home on three supervised outings for a total of four hours a week, with advance notice.
Appearing at an Ottawa news conference, his wife, Sophie, choked back tears, then laughed and said, "I thought I could do it without crying this year."
"It's been four years of hell for us," she said.
Strict bail conditions, hunger strikes continue
Diana Ralph, a supporter of another detainee, Hassan Almrei of Mississauga, Ont., said the ruling "finally starts to correct this grotesque law," which she said includes the "vicious" threat of deportation.
Ralph said Almrei is on day 78 of a hunger strike in which he has refused solid food at the immigration holding centre in Kingston, Ont.
"We call for their release and the complete end of bail conditions and for a discontinuation of the continuing threat to deport these men to countries where they are likely to face torture," said Kevin Skerritt of the Justice for Mohamed Harkat Committee.
With the unanimous ruling, there is at least a year of uncertainty for five men who were detained under the security certificates for alleged links to al-Qaeda.
One-year grace period
However, Johanne Doyon, counsel for Moroccan detainee Adil Charkaoui, described the judgment as a "nearly total victory" for the challengers and predicted the government wouldn't dare deport any of them during the one-year grace period it will take to revise the law.
Ahmed Jaballah, the son of a Toronto detainee from Egypt who is staging a hunger strike with Almrei, said he's worried that freedom is a long way off for his father, Mahmoud.
"It's a step in the right direction, but I'm still concerned with what will happen to these men."
He said even if the security certificates are quashed after the one-year period, their cases could go back to court and proceedings could continue for years.
Jaballah said his father is on the 81st day of a hunger strike.
Detainees await government reaction
In the House of Commons, Bloc Québécois MP Monique Guay asked the Conservative government if it would "abandon its George Bush approach" and amend the law allowing secret trials of non-citizens.
The government is still reviewing the court decision and will respond in a "timely and decisive fashion," Dave MacKenzie, parliamentary secretary for public safety, told the Commons.
Charkaoui, who was arrested in Montreal 2003 under a security certificate and released on bail in 2005, said he is "anxious" to see whether a government with "former Reformers who want to limit the role of the judiciary" will adopt the court's recommendations.
He said the law under which he was detained but never charged is unfair
Detainee ruling comes after 'years of hell'
Last Updated: Friday, February 23, 2007 | 3:37 PM ET
CBC News
Relatives of the men arrested under the federal government's national security certificates praised a high court ruling Friday ordering a new system, while expressing fear that their legal battles are far from over.
The Supreme Court of Canada ruled unanimously the certificate system is unconstitutional and has given the federal government one year to rewrite the law.
"It's the happiest day of my life," said Mohamed Harkat, who was interviewed by CBC Newsworld from his home in Ottawa.
He said he was "crying for 3½ years in jail" as he continued asking authorities what evidence they had against him.
Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin, writing for the court, said the process of hearing such cases behind closed doors without a lawyer for the accused present is a violation of fundamental justice.
The court suggested Parliament could solve the problem by allowing special security-cleared lawyers to attend the hearings to challenge the evidence and protect the rights of the accused.
Continue Article
Harkat was recently released on bail and remains under house arrest. He can leave his home on three supervised outings for a total of four hours a week, with advance notice.
Appearing at an Ottawa news conference, his wife, Sophie, choked back tears, then laughed and said, "I thought I could do it without crying this year."
"It's been four years of hell for us," she said.
Strict bail conditions, hunger strikes continue
Diana Ralph, a supporter of another detainee, Hassan Almrei of Mississauga, Ont., said the ruling "finally starts to correct this grotesque law," which she said includes the "vicious" threat of deportation.
Ralph said Almrei is on day 78 of a hunger strike in which he has refused solid food at the immigration holding centre in Kingston, Ont.
"We call for their release and the complete end of bail conditions and for a discontinuation of the continuing threat to deport these men to countries where they are likely to face torture," said Kevin Skerritt of the Justice for Mohamed Harkat Committee.
With the unanimous ruling, there is at least a year of uncertainty for five men who were detained under the security certificates for alleged links to al-Qaeda.
One-year grace period
However, Johanne Doyon, counsel for Moroccan detainee Adil Charkaoui, described the judgment as a "nearly total victory" for the challengers and predicted the government wouldn't dare deport any of them during the one-year grace period it will take to revise the law.
Ahmed Jaballah, the son of a Toronto detainee from Egypt who is staging a hunger strike with Almrei, said he's worried that freedom is a long way off for his father, Mahmoud.
"It's a step in the right direction, but I'm still concerned with what will happen to these men."
He said even if the security certificates are quashed after the one-year period, their cases could go back to court and proceedings could continue for years.
Jaballah said his father is on the 81st day of a hunger strike.
Detainees await government reaction
In the House of Commons, Bloc Québécois MP Monique Guay asked the Conservative government if it would "abandon its George Bush approach" and amend the law allowing secret trials of non-citizens.
The government is still reviewing the court decision and will respond in a "timely and decisive fashion," Dave MacKenzie, parliamentary secretary for public safety, told the Commons.
Charkaoui, who was arrested in Montreal 2003 under a security certificate and released on bail in 2005, said he is "anxious" to see whether a government with "former Reformers who want to limit the role of the judiciary" will adopt the court's recommendations.
He said the law under which he was detained but never charged is unfair
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)