Original author: Sue Montgomery
Source: The Montreal Gazette
URL: [link]
Date: February 07, 2005


The government claims it's a necessary trade-off to protect Canada and its citizens, but a growing number of legal, human rights and refugee advocates decry the security certificate as discriminating against non-citizens.

There are now six men, five of them Muslim, being held without charge, with little or no knowledge of the evidence against them and risk deportation to their countries, where some face torture. They have no chance to appeal.While critics recognize the need to protect national security, they ask why suspected terrorists can't be tried under criminal rather than immigration law, which has a lower burden of proof.

"We should allow people named in the certificate to challenge it in the same way we would like a citizen to be able to challenge a similar proceeding," said Francois Crepeau, professor of international law at the Universite de Montreal.

That could be done under anti-terrorism provisions in the criminal code and sensitive information could be protected the same way it is during trials of biker gangs or drug dealers, he said.

Because all the evidence against the person named in a certificate is seen only by government lawyers and the judge, it is impossible to "mount an accurate and credible defence," wrote several experts in a letter last October to Public Safety Minister Anne McLellan.

A lawyer who has been representing Montrealer Adil Charkaoui, held since May 2003, is applying this week to challenge the certificate's constitutionality before the country's highest court.

"There are profound questions about the independence of the judiciary as well as questions of national importance," Johanne Doyon said. "Where are we going with this? Will we start having secret trials every time there's a threat to national security?"

But the federal government defends the process, citing the Federal Court of Appeal's recent decision that individual rights must sometimes be restricted in the interest of national security.

© The Gazette (Montreal) 2005