Source: The Globe and Mail
URL: [link]
Date: December 9, 2010
Canada’s embattled spy service won three key court rulings Thursday, all centred on a single terrorism suspect: Mohamed Harkat, said a Federal Court judge, is a probable terrorist sleeper agent, one who needs to be banished for the greater good.
The rulings by Mr. Justice Simon Noel amount to a rare and unequivocal victory for the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, which has suffered many legal setbacks of late. A battery of top defence lawyers had failed to impugn CSIS – a fact made all the more significant given that some of Mr. Harket’s counsel had scrutinized highly secret “human source reports” whose release to outsiders would have been unthinkable not very long ago.
The judge’s rulings could have big implications for Canada’s so-called security-certificate law, a polarizing power that allows federal ministers to jail and deport foreigners on the basis of secret CSIS intelligence.
The rulings uphold three points. First, the security certificate alleging Mr. Harkat is a terrorist threat is reasonable. Second, CSIS’s investigative missteps – and there were some – do not constitute “abuses” significant enough to fundamentally undermine the Harkat case. Third, the government’s security-certificate power remains consistent with Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
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