Secrecy threatens credibility of Iacobucci Inquiry

I have termed this inquiry a farce several times already. I thought I was indulging in hyperbole of course but it seems not. Imagine the inquiry censors the fact that there were complaints about the secrecy. So far my blog posts don't seem to have any blank spaces though!
As Walkom mentioned the Iacobucci Inquiry is not to be public. In my opinion it was not meant to be any sort of sequel either. It was meant to signal the end of any type of inquiry that might help anyone accused of terrorism clear his or her name. The Arar inquiry in spite of the fact that it was quite toothless did clear Arar and lead to compensation as well as embarassing the RCMP and CSIS.
Among the ways that the commission seeks to be credible is through keeping from the public anything about the nature of its operation except of course for the fact that it is secret, that and the fact that the main legal beagles are all from Torys LLP assures credibility. About censoring letters complaining about secrecy John Laskin opines:
"We have to be faithful to the terms of reference," explained commission counsel John Laskin yesterday. He said the censored portions concern off-the-record discussions with commission counsel. These discussions, he said, did not touch on national security. But because they dealt with the commission's operation, they were deemed to fall within the stringent and secretive terms of reference set by Harper
Secrecy threatens credibility of Iacobucci inquiry
Thomas Walkom

To call Frank Iacobucci's judicial inquiry into the torture and imprisonment of three Canadians secretive would be an understatement. The former Supreme Court justice's inquiry is so secretive that it censors even the complaints about its obsessive secrecy.

By comparison, Prime Minister Stephen Harper seems positively garrulous. By comparison, even Dick Cheney – the deeply paranoid U.S. vice-president – is a paragon of openness.

Iacobucci's inquiry began with great hope. The respected jurist was chosen by Harper last year to determine whether Canadian officials played any role in the detention and torture abroad of Canadians Abdullah Almalki, Ahmad Elmaati and Muayyed Nureddin.

In effect, Iacobucci was to be Part Two of Justice Dennis O'Connor's earlier inquiry into Maher Arar. As part of his report, O'Connor had concluded there were "troubling questions" about the role of Canadian officials in the treatment by Syria and Egypt of the three other Muslim men.

He recommended that the government investigate these cases further, not through a full-scale public inquiry but by means of an "independent and credible process" that could take less time.

Which is what the Iacobucci exercise was supposed to be. Under the terms of reference ordered by Harper, the former judge was to take "all steps necessary to ensure that the inquiry is conducted in private" except where he thought public hearings "essential."

But since then, the inquiry's doors have been shut so tight that the credibility of the inquiry – its entire raison d'être – is in doubt.

No one expected the government to share its national security secrets with the public. But this inquiry has shared virtually nothing.

In an application dated Oct. 2, the three men – along with interveners such as Amnesty International – complain that they have been provided with almost no substantive information. They have not been given any documents, even non-secret ones. They have not been allowed to cross-examine witnesses. They don't even have a witness list.

There have been no public hearings. Nor have summaries of evidence been provided.

The very fact that the three men complained to the commission about its secrecy was kept secret until Friday. The complainants themselves weren't allowed to talk about it.

And when it did make the complaint public, the commission censored portions – not because they dealt with matters of national security but because they spoke to how the commission was handling its business.

One entire page of a letter to the commission from lawyer Paul Copeland is blacked out. In another letter, this one from Amnesty International's Alex Neve, most of the section dealing with "interviews about torture" is blacked out.

"We have to be faithful to the terms of reference," explained commission counsel John Laskin yesterday. He said the censored portions concern off-the-record discussions with commission counsel. These discussions, he said, did not touch on national security. But because they dealt with the commission's operation, they were deemed to fall within the stringent and secretive terms of reference set by Harper.

Iacobucci is supposed to report by the end of January. But no matter how balanced and judicious his findings, he runs the risk that he won't be believed.

It's hard to put much faith in a secret inquiry where only one side – the government's – has been heard.




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Thomas Walkom's column appears Thursday and Sunday

Walkom on Iacobucci's rulings re hearings.

The entire issue as to whether intelligence services have a case against the three is not even part of the terms of reference. There is no way this inquiry will do a thing to clear the three whose case is being probed. In fact it is no probe at all just a look at a very narrow range of issues having to do with their being jailed and tortured in Syria (and Egypt in one case) and the relation of this to actions of Canadian intelligence officers and diplomatic officers.
What will be on the website? Will it have any summaries of testimony or will a summary be impossible because virtually anything will be a matter of national security?

Hearings secret, inquiry head rules

Not even the Muslim Canadians whose cases are being probed will be able to hear what's presented

Jun 01, 2007 04:30 AM
Thomas Walkom
National Affairs Writer

Bad news for those hoping to find out more about Canada's murky role in the war on terror. The head of an inquiry into the mistreatment and imprisonment of three Muslim Canadian men has ruled that, save in exceptional circumstances, the entire exercise will be carried out in secret.

Former Supreme Court justice Frank Iacobucci said these hearings will be so secret that not even the three complainants – or their lawyers – will be allowed to hear the bulk of the evidence before him.

Iacobucci did reserve the right to hold public hearings any time he wants. But in the 32-page ruling released yesterday, he made it clear that such instances will be very much the exception.

The inquiry was set up by the federal Conservative government to look into Canada's role in the imprisonment and mistreatment of Canadian citizens Abdullah Almalki, Ahmad El Maati and Muayyed Nureddin.

All three were arrested during separate visits to Syria between 2001 and 2003. All say they were tortured. None has been charged with a crime in any country.

All were also under some kind of surveillance by either the Canadian Security Intelligence Service or the RCMP before their arrests. Almalki and El Maati were part of the CSIS-RCMP investigation that ended up focusing on Maher Arar, the Canadian Muslim who became a cause célèbre in this country after he was deported by U.S. authorities to Syria in 2002 to be tortured. Nureddin came to the attention of CSIS in 2000, apparently because agents wanted to find out more about the Scarborough mosque where he prays.

According to Justice Dennis O'Connor's report into the Arar affair, Almalki, El Maati and Nureddin were all tortured in Syria during their imprisonment.

However the federal government has never accepted that part of O'Connor's report, calling it "rife with frailties." It wanted Iacobucci to ignore the torture allegations as irrelevant.

In his ruling yesterday, Iacobucci disagreed. He said he thought that torture was a serious enough matter to warrant further investigation of the three men's complaints.

But on secrecy, he sided fully with the government. He said the terms of reference for his inquiry demand that secrecy be the norm. He also said it would make his work go faster.

The question of secrecy has dogged this inquiry since it was set up last December. In its terms of reference, Ottawa directed the commissioner to take "all steps necessary to ensure the Inquiry is conducted in private."

But at the same time, the government gave Iacobucci, who is also chair of Torstar Inc., the Toronto Star's parent company, leeway to hold portions in public if he thought doing so was "essential."

The three complainants, as well as a group of interveners that includes Amnesty International, argued that it made no sense to have a public inquiry that takes place almost entirely in private.

Indeed, during the Arar inquiry – a great deal of which was public – the hearings revealed in a manner that O'Connor's final report never could the cavalier attitude of the RCMP, CSIS and some senior foreign service officers toward torture.

In effect, witnesses told O'Connor during those hearings, the treatment of Canadians in Syria was Syria's business. What was important to the Canadian security services was the information they could glean.

To that end, as O'Connor noted, the RCMP even sent Syria a list of questions to ask Almalki when he was in their custody.

Like any skilled judge, Iacobucci has given himself leeway to change his mind as the inquiry progresses. But it seems the die has been cast.

"It's disappointing," says Amnesty's John Tackaberry. Which is an understatement