by Cristin Schmitz
Source: The Lawyers Weekly
URL: [link]
Date: March 28, 2008


A longtime military lawyer, and a civil litigator whose major client is the federal Department of Public Works, are among the latest lawyers with links to the government of Canada who have been appointed as independent special advocates for those held under security certificates.

Lieutenant-Colonel Denis Couture of Ashton, Ont., who retired in 2003 after 27 years in the Office of the Judge Advocate General and who continues to work as a lawyer in the Canadian Forces (CF) reserves, and Sylvain Lussier, a Montreal civil litigator who was lead counsel for the federal government at the Gomery Commission of Inquiry into the sponsorship scandal from 2004 to 2006, were among the six new special advocates named by Justice Minister Rob Nicholson March 4.

They join a roster of 13 other security-cleared special advocates appointed Feb. 22 to protect the interests of persons named in security certificates during closed-door judicial reviews of the certificates based on secret government evidence.

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