Carefully, gradually, the courts are nibbling away at Canada's anti-terror laws. They did it last week when an Ontario Superior Court justice ruled that secrecy provisions of these laws contradict freedom of the press. They did it again yesterday when another Ontario judge declared the very definition of terrorist activity is unconstitutional. The rulings represent a sharp rebuke to those parliamentarians who rushed through the terror laws in the wake of the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington. They also call into question the current obsession with terrorism as a unique, world-defining evil. In yesterday's decision — related to the terror charges brought against Ottawa computer software developer Momin Khawaja — Superior Court Justice Douglas Rutherford concluded that the central definition of what constitutes "a terrorist activity" contravenes constitutional provisions that guarantee freedom of religion, expression and association.

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