If at first you do not succeed, try, try again. These words of wisdom convey the ethos of human rights advocacy: paucities of political power, limited financial resources, public indifference (if not outright hostility), and the slow pace of social change regularly conspire to cast those who persist in the fight for justice as idealistic [...]

The ongoing judicial-parliamentary dialogue over the constitutionality of Canada’s security certificates regime came to a halt this week when the Federal Court refused to consider the latest constitutional challenge on its merits. The Almrei case is the first constitutional challenge to the new amendments to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, enacted in the wake [...]

On September 24, 2008, Judge Simon Noël of the Federal Court (FCC DES-5-08) the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) and the Ministers of Public Safety and Citizenship and Immigration to “file all information and intelligence related to Mohamed Harkat including but not limited to drafts, diagrams, recordings and photographs in CSIS’s possession or holdings with [...]

Adil Charkaoui has spent more time working his way through the Canadian court system than most Canadian lawyers. This past January 31, Canada’s most famous security certificate detainee was back at it in the Supreme Court, this time trying to establish that his right to procedural fairness had been violated [link]. At issue was the [...]

On February 23, 2007 the Supreme Court of Canada released its decision from the appeal of my client Mohammed Harkat, which was argued at the same time as the Charkaoui and Almrei cases. The SCC ruled that the procedures used to determine the reasonableness of security certificates under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act violated [...]

The Charkaoui et al. decision may represent an important turning point in Canada’s approach to national security, particularly when it is read as a strong statement in support of procedural fairness, a concept that has suffered internationally in the post-September 11 context. The Supreme Court’s rulings with respect to secret evidence and indefinite detention without [...]

The Supreme Court of Canada’s decision in Charkaoui (2007) SCC 9 is notable not just for its depth, but also for the range of issues that it considers and deals with. Its main conclusion is, of course, that portions of the Canadian Immigration and Refugee Protection Act relating to the joint issuance and utilization of [...]

The Supreme Court of Canada’s ruling in Charkaoui 2007 SCC 9 striking down the procedures for the review of Security Certificates under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (“IRPA“) has implications in a number of different security-related contexts.1 Of immediate interest is whether the Supreme Court’s decision has any significance in terms of the resolution [...]

The Anti-Terrorism Story The Supreme Court of Canada’s decision in Charkaoui v. Canada (Citizenship and Immigration) 2007 SCC 9 [Charkaoui] will undoubtedly attract much public attention. Most newsworthy will be the fact that these cases represent the first time since September 11, 2001 that the Supreme Court has delivered a defeat to the Government in [...]

Secret hearings to justify the issuance of security certificates and the detention of persons named in them, have been struck down. In an extraordinary, unanimous decision authored by the Chief Justice, the Supreme Court has declared unconstitutional the statutory scheme in the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act that required review of certificates and detention to [...]