Canada rules indefinite detention wrong
By BETH DUFF-BROWN, The Associated Press 1 hour, 3 minutes ago
Canada's Supreme Court struck down the government's right to detain foreign terrorism suspects indefinitely and without trial, ruling Friday that the system violates the country's bill of rights.
The Justice Department had insisted that the "security certificate" program is 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 violates the Charter of Rights and Freedom. It suspended the judgment from taking effect for a year, to give Parliament time to rewrite the law 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 to have ties to al-Qaida 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.
Federal law currently allows sensitive intelligence information to be heard privately by a federal judge, with only sketchy summaries given to defense attorneys.
If those foreigners choose to fight deportation, they can spend years jailed while the cases go through the courts. Even if they are freed, they risk being labeled as terrorists.
Though the security certificate program has been around since the 1970s, its use became more contentious after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States, and more suspect since Canada used faulty intelligence in a case that led to a $9 million apology to another former terrorism suspect, Maher Arar.
Five Arab Muslim men currently stand accused of terrorist links under the certificates; and all five deny any ties to terrorism. It was not immediately clear if the three men still in detention would be released or remain jailed until the law is rewritten.
The most notable is Adil Charkaoui, 33, a native of Morocco. The former University of Montreal student and pizzeria operator was arrested in Montreal in 2003 and freed on bail under strict conditions in 2005. He is accused by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service of belonging to the Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group, which has ties to al-Qaida and a history of terrorist attacks in Spain.
CSIS also claims Ahmed Ressam, convicted in 2001 of plotting to blow up Los Angeles International Airport, identified Charkaoui as someone he met at an al-Qaida training camp in Afghanistan — a contention denied by Charkaoui.
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On the Net:
Supreme Court ruling:
http://scc.lexum.umontreal.ca/en/2007/2007scc9/2007scc9.html
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