This commentary by Prof. Ed Morgan was first published in The Globe and Mail on May 27, 2009.
Canadians may be surprised to learn a few things about our constitutional law.
First, the military owes no duty toward detainees arrested by us and turned over to a foreign state for custody.
Second, our intelligence service does owe a duty toward prisoners taken into custody by a foreign state and turned over to us for interrogation.
Third, our diplomats are obliged to intervene with a foreign legal system that fails to live up to our domestic standards of punishment.
And fourth, our police are free to comply with a foreign legal system that fails to live up to our domestic standards of search and seizure.
When it comes to the powers of the Canadian government abroad, each new court ruling makes us wonder if the judges took the time to read the last one. How did this confused state of affairs come to be?