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Canadian court strikes down anti-terror law
The Supreme Court of Canada on Friday struck down the governments right to detain foreign terrorism suspects indefinitely and without trial, saying the system violates the countrys bill of rights. The Justice Department had insisted that the security certificate programme was a key tool in the fight against global terrorism and essential to national security. But in a 9-0 judgment, the high court found the system violated the Charter of Rights and Freedom. It suspended the judgment from taking effect for a year, to give parliament time to rewrite the part of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act that deals with the certificates. The certificates were challenged on constitutional grounds by three men from Morocco, Syria and Algeria all alleged by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) to have ties to Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups. The overarching principle of fundamental justice that applies here is this: before the state can detain people for significant periods of time, it must accord them a fair judicial process, Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin wrote in the ruling. Opponents of the system say it violates the human rights of those who have no access to the evidence against them and who would face torture or death if deported to their native countries. Barbara Jackman, an attorney who represents one of the men detained for six years, said the Supreme Court decision in no way compromised national security. It only strengthens our democracy, she said. Its an indication to other countries that to detain people and mistreat them is not satisfactory. There are ways to provide fair hearings in the face of national security concerns. The federal law currently allows sensitive intelligence information to be heard behind closed doors by a federal judge, with only sketchy summaries given to defence attorneys. If those foreigners choose to fight deportation, they can spend years in jail while the cases go through courts. Even if they are freed, they risk being labelled as terrorists. Though the security certificate programme has been around since the 1970s, its use became more contentious after 9/11, and since Ottawa used faulty intelligence in a case that led to a $9 million apology to a former terrorism suspect, Maher Arar. Posted by: Fred 2007-02-24 |
| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=181337 |