Canadian Anti-Terror Law on Trial

Kent Roach
Tuesday, June 13, 2006

This commentary by Professor Kent Roach is cross-posted from the Jurist Forum.

The arrest of twelve adults and five youths on terrorism charges in Toronto has resulted in world-wide attention on Canada’s anti-terrorism efforts. The allegations are shocking. They include claims that the men tried to purchase three tons of ammonium nitrate to use in truck bombs and that they trained to prepare for terrorism north of Toronto. ...

The men have been charged with a variety of crimes under the Anti-Terrorism Act that was added with considerable controversy to Canada’s Criminal Code in late 2001. Only one other person, Mohammad Momin Khawaja, has been charged under the new law. He was charged in March, 2004 and his trial has yet to be held. The result is that the new Anti-Terrorism Act remains untested.

Read the full posting on the Jurist Forum website.

 

Canada's New Terrorism Bills: Slow Down and Debate

Kent Roach
Monday, October 29, 2007

Canadian Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day tabled new legislation in the House of Commons last Monday to allow British-style special advocates to play a role in security certificate cases that are used to detain and deport non-citizens suspected of involvement in terrorism. The bill responds to the Supreme Court of Canada's decision earlier this year that the existing legislation was unconstitutional.

On Tuesday the government tabled another bill in the Senate to revive investigative hearings and preventive arrests. These Criminal Code powers were introduced after 9/11 but expired in March, 2007 after the government failed to convince Parliament to renew them for three years. The government now proposes to include the powers in the Criminal Code, subject to a some changes and a 5 year renewable sunset.

The official opposition - the Liberal Party - has indicated some preliminary support for both bills and they appear likely to pass. There is a need to slow down and carefully consider both bills, as well as important work already done by Parliamentary committees on anti-terrorism law.

Why has Canada Changed its Tune on Citizens Facing the Death Penalty?

Ed Morgan
Monday, November 24, 2008

This commentary was first published in The Lawyers Weekly on November 16, 2007, page 17

Ronald Smith of Red Deer, Alberta is slated to die the same way that Stanley Faulder of Jasper, Alberta did in 1999: by lethal injection. It can be a cruel death, leaving people gasping for air and writhing in pain while jailhouse “doctors” try to hit a vein with the poisoned needle. Observers at the 1994 execution of killer John Wayne Gacey in Illinois told reporters that the person who inserted the tube in his arm appeared to have “never taken I.V. 101”.

The two Canadians also share another trait: brutality. Faulder murdered a 75 year old Texas woman by crushing her skull with a blackjack and then stabbing her with a kitchen knife, while Smith killed two young Native Americans in Montana by shooting them with a sawed-off shotgun at point blank range in the back of the head. Two cold Canadians whose confessions left little doubt as to the identity of the killers and horror of the crimes.

And yet with all the similarities, Canada has responded in starkly different ways. In Faulder’s case, the government turned interventionist, petitioning the U.S. courts and requesting clemency from the governor of Texas. By contrast, in Smith’s case, the government has turned isolationist, refusing to intervene in a judicial system that shares the same rule of law approach as Canada.

A Malignant Vestige Of 'Tradition'

Anver Emon
Tuesday, December 18, 2007

This commentary was first published in the National Post on December 14, 2007.

The tragic death of Aqsa Parvez has been on my mind incessantly since I heard the news that the Mississauga, Ont., teenager had been killed -- allegedly by her traditionally minded Muslim father. As a professor of Islamic law, I teach my students about its history, doctrines and modes of analysis. We shift back and forth from common law reasoning to Islamic doctrines. We analyze the differences between the values of the Islamic system and our own value commitments.

But then an extreme episode such as the death of Ms. Parvez arises, and we move beyond the academic exercises of the classroom to pangs of outrage and heartbreak.

One hopes that no religion would sanction the killing of a child. And, indeed, the Islamic tradition does not condone the crime Ms. Perez's father is alleged to have committed against his rebellious daughter. But is it possible that there's something in his Muslim faith that influenced him to act so outrageously?

Suicide Bombings: An Act to Amend the Criminal Code

Ed Morgan
Monday, April 14, 2008

Senator Jerahmiel Grafstein (Lib.) has recently introduced into Parliament a proposed amendment to the anti-terrorism provisions of the Criminal Code, Bill S-210, which is now before the Senate's Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee. The Bill is a short and straightforward one, which provides:

Section 83.01 of the Criminal Code is amended by adding the following after subsection (1.1):

(1.2) For greater certainty, a suicide bombing comes within paragraphs (a) and (b) of the definition "terrorist activity" in subsection (1).

Although the point seems an obvious one, and, indeed, has been objected to by a number of MP's and senators on the grounds that it defines an act that is already covered by the Code's definition of "terrorist activity", the proposed amendment has merit. Criminal law has a public education and labelling function which will be advanced by this definitional statement. In addition, given that Canadian courts often look to international law and its institutional pronouncements on questions of interpretation, the amendment is necessary in order to avoid the interpretive pitfalls into which international human rights and United Nations bodies have fallen.

My brief to the Senate committee is attached.
Download SuicideBombingS210.pdf

 

Inviting Trouble: The West May Come to Regret the International Criminal Court's Indictment of Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir

Ed Morgan
Thursday, July 17, 2008

Originally published in the National Post on Wednesday, July 16, 2008

The announcement that an indictment is pending against Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir has been greeted with enthusiasm in Western capitals. But international justice can be fickle. If the new international criminal court (ICC) doesn't show more responsibility than have similar institutions, the tables may soon turn on those applauding the loudest.

First the good news: The ruling clique in Sudan deserves all the condemnation the world can muster. The crimes perpetrated by the Khartoum government and the Janjaweed militia, which acts as its surrogate in the Darfur region, seem to beg for precisely this type of international prosecution. If, as ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo has said, "the decision to start the genocide was taken by Bashir personally," no rational observer should shed a tear over this particular defendant.

Pages