Terror law revision still violates Charter, lawyer says Security certificate changes not ’sufficient’ to safeguard rights
By Richard Foot
The Ottawa Citizen
Friday, February 01, 2008
Adil Charkaoui, who is on bail while being held under a national security certificate, leaves the Supreme Court of Canada yesterday. Mr Charkaoui alleges that CSIS failed to disclose all its evidence against him.
The Conservative government hasn’t done enough with its revised security certificate legislation to bring the law in line with the Charter of Rights, says Paul Cavalluzzo, the Toronto lawyer and former lead counsel of the Maher Arar inquiry.
Adil Charkaoui, who is on bail while being held under a national security certificate, leaves the Supreme Court of Canada yesterday. Mr Charkaoui alleges that CSIS failed to disclose all its evidence against him.
PHOTO CREDIT: Bruno Schlumberger, The Ottawa Citizen
Mr. Cavalluzzo, one of the country’s most prominent constitutional lawyers, says Bill C-3 — legislation aimed at fixing flaws in the controversial anti-terror provision — still won’t adequately protect the rights of people arrested and facing deportation to a foreign country.
“I don’t think C-3 is sufficient to meet the standards of the Constitution,” he says.
One person arrested under a security certificate, Montreal immigrant Adil Charkaoui, took his case to the Supreme Court yesterday in a bid to quash the government’s effort to deport him to his native Morocco.
It was Mr. Charkaoui’s second visit to the country’s highest court. Last February, he and two other accused terrorists convinced the court to strike down the law — an extraordinary immigration measure that lets authorities arrest, detain and deport non-citizens considered threats to national security.
The court said the law violates accused persons’ constitutional right to defend themselves, because they cannot know the government’s secret evidence against them or participate in a judicial hearing that would determine their fate.
The court gave the federal government one year — until Feb. 23, 2008 — to bring the law in line with the Constitution.
Mr. Charkaoui, who since 2005 has been living under strict bail conditions, came back to the Supreme Court with his lawyers and a long list of organizations also opposed to the security certificate regime, including the Canadian Bar Association and Amnesty International.
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