Luis Millan, Lawyers Weekly, May 16 2008
Adil Charkaoui, a Montreal terror suspect-cum-French school teacher, has filed a notice of motion before the Federal Court of Canada seeking a declaratory judgment declaring Bill C-3, Canada’s revamped security certificate regime, to be unconstitutional.
Charkaoui, whose security certificate was renewed on the same day that the federal government enacted An Act to amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (certificate and special advocate) and to make a consequential amendment to another Act, is also seeking an interim order that will lift, if not relax, stringent bail conditions that includes a curfew, bans on Internet and cell phone use, and the wearing of a GPS tracking anklet. A Moroccan-born permanent resident of Canada, Charkaoui was arrested in May 2003 under a security certificate, which allows the federal government to detain non-citizens indefinitely under threat of deportation, and held in detention for 26 months before being released on February 2005 under strict court-ordered conditions.