Courts have maintained proper balance between rights of the accused and national security

James Morton, Toronto Star, 2 Oct 2009

Just a few weeks after Prime Minister Stephen Harper raised fears of left-wing ideologues on the bench, Public Safety Minister Peter Van Loan said he fears for the government's ability to fight terrorism.

Van Loan complained of "an increasingly complex legal environment" in which judges are no longer deferring to the government in its efforts to deport foreign suspects. "It raises questions about whether we can protect national security," he said.

Certainly it has been a difficult few months for the government's anti-terrorism policy. Judges have not been notably supportive of government positions.

The Federal Court of Appeal recently upheld a ruling requiring the government to ask the Americans to bring Omar Khadr to Canada. That case is going to the Supreme Court but most observers do not see a government victory as likely.

Three security certificate cases, in which non-Canadians are subject to deportation on ministerial certificates, also look close to collapse.

Toronto Star editorial, Sep 30, 2009

Is Canada's ability to fight terror being hobbled by Federal Court judges who are making it hard for officials to keep foreign suspects in detention indefinitely, or on a tight leash?

Public Safety Minister Peter Van Loan worries that may indeed be the case. "It raises questions about whether we can protect national security and I can tell you I am concerned," he told Canwest News Service this week. "I spend a fair bit of time thinking about it."

Van Loan's remarks came in the wake of judicial blows last week to Canada's controversial "national security certificate" regime – the law that allows Ottawa to hold foreign terror suspects in preventive detention indefinitely, or under close watch, until they can be deported.

One judge ordered Adil Charkaoui, an alleged Al Qaeda sympathizer, unshackled from his tracking device, leaving him a free man. That was after government lawyers chose to withdraw evidence against him rather than comply with an order to release a public summary of it. Speaking for the government, the lawyers disputed the judge's view that disclosure wouldn't harm national security.

By Janice Tibbetts, Canwest News Service, September 22, 2009

Supreme Court Justice Beverley McLachlin. Her warning that lawmakers, judges and citizens must heed the big picture comes as the federal government's war on terror is taking a beating in the nation's courts.

OTTAWA — Canada's most senior judge cautioned Tuesday against going overboard in the fight against terrorism by putting too much emphasis on the 9/11 attacks in the U.S. at the expense of sacrificing civil rights and charter protections.

Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin's warning that lawmakers, judges and citizens must heed the big picture comes as the federal government's war on terror is taking a beating in the nation's courts.

"The fear and anger that terrorism produces may cause leaders to make war on targets that may or may not be connected with the terrorist incident," McLachlin told the Ottawa Women's Canadian Club in a luncheon speech Tuesday.

"Or perhaps it may lead governments to curtail civil liberties and seek recourse in tactics they might otherwise deplore . . . that may not, in the clearer light of retrospect, be necessary or defensible."

To the Editor

In his article "Divisive terror law losing traction," Colin Freeze (Globe and Mail, 21 September 2009) repeats assertions by government lawyers that, out of concern for human rights, the Federal Court is bent on forcing CSIS to "spill state secrets" in the Charkaoui case, to the detriment of the spy agency's sources of information and relationships with foreign spies.

This misrepresents the situation. It was not a zealous application of human rights principles which lead the Federal Court to order the disclosure of secret information in the Charkaoui case. It was a simple calculation, in which the two special advocates assigned to Charkaoui concurred, that the disclosure of that information would in no way compromise the national security of Canada. Judge Tremblay Lamer in fact goes out of her way in a court directive of 5 August 2009 to underscore the court's opinion that disclosure, in this case, would not affect national security.

New Brunswick Federation of Labour, June 2009

Resolution No. 49 Submitted by the Canadian Union of Postal Workers

SECURITY CERTIFICATES

The Federation will:

Support the fight to abolish the security certificate system and will continue to work, through the CLC with human rights groups and civil liberties organizations opposing the violations of human rights and civil liberties involved in so-called “national security” initiatives.

Because security cannot be separated from human rights;

Because the “special advocate” provision in the new security certificate legislation strengthens the security certificate system and continues to allow for indefinite imprisonment, secret evidence and the threat of deportation to countries where individuals face probable torture or death;

Because history shows that when due process and fundamental justice is denied to a specific group of people it is soon denied to trade unionists and others.

as read by Fernand Deschamps at a press conference in Vancouver on June 25th 2009

Good morning everyone.

Before speaking, Adil Charkaoui and the Coalition Justice for Adil Charkaoui would like to warmly thank the local organizations and supporters who went out of their way to give us the opportunity to come to British Columbia and help us break the wall of silence that is imposed on Adil’s conditions and the other four people detained in Canada under security certificates.

From the Human Rights desk of the Centre d'appui aux Philippines - Centre for Philippine Concerns (Montréal), Tuesday, December 9, 2008

The Centre d’appui aux Philippines / Center for Philippine Concerns (CAP-CPC) views with alarm the unfolding events surrounding the trial of Adil Charkaoui in Canada.

On December 9, in Montreal, Adil Charkaoui will go to trial again, even though it was just revealed that the spy agency CSIS has not yet given anyone - not even the judge - evidence to support its opinions about Adil. In addition, the hearings will take place under a judge, that Charkaoui's lawyers have already argued, should withdraw from the case on the grounds of bias. (More info: www.adilinfo.org/en/node/483).

The Charkaouis have been struggling for very basic rights for more than five years now - against racial profiling, secret trials, torture, arbitrary detention - in what feels like a treadmill of injustice. The endless court proceedings completely banalize the injustices, humiliations, threat of violence and intrusive state control Adil and the rest of his family are subject to on a daily basis.

At its General Assembly on 4 June, the Conseil central du Montréal métropolitain (CSN) invited Mr. Adil Charkaoui, threatened with deportation from Canada under a Federal government-issued security certificate, a measure of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (IRPA).

After listening with a lot of emotion to Adil Charkaoui describe his ordeal with the federal government since his arrest in 2003, the delegates of the union affiliates resolved to support this young Canadian resident originally from Morocco.

According to a letter written by the CCMM (CSN) to all their union affiliates following this resolution,

The Federation Autonome du collegial, a federation of 17 college teacher's unions in Quebec, voted unanimously at its federated assembly of May 2008 to support a resolution which called for the abolition of security certificates, a fair trial, liberation without condition of all five men, and end to deportation proceedings against them.

"Nous croyons :

March 13, 2008.

Madame Michelle Courchesne
Ministre de l'Éducation, du Loisir et du Sport
1035, rue de la Chevrotière, 16e étage
Québec (Québec)
G1R 5A5

Dear Madame Courchesne:

On behalf of the 55,000 members of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers, I am writing you regarding Adil Charkaoui, one of five men subject to what we feel is the unjust, discriminatory and unconstitutional security certificate. The horrible impact of the certificate extends to every area of life and affects entire families.

CUPW has long taken an interest in the security certificate issue and has participated in the public debate on this issue. As a labour union, we feel particularly strongly about the situation which gave rise to this letter, as it directly engages labour rights.

Mr. Charkaoui has been trying to earn a living while facing unfair barriers since this ordeal began in 2003. For almost two years, in a nation that calls itself free and democratic, he was imprisoned without charge and denied the possibility of working.