Wikileaks considered a “threat” by US Army
WikiLeaks, the whistle-blowing website that provides confidential and sensitive documents for free to the media, human rights groups and the public, has been deemed a threat by the US Army.
WikiLeaks has been responsible in the past for providing a copy of the Standard Operating Procedures for Camp Delta, the contents of Sarah Palin’s Yahoo account, and a membership list of the far-right British National Party which got at least one police officer dismissed, among many other significant stories.
A 2008 document recently posted there, entitled U.S. Intelligence planned to destroy WikiLeaks, states,
The possibility that current employees or moles within DoD or elsewhere in the U.S. government are providing
sensitive or classified information to Wikileaks.org cannot be ruled out.
Plans included trying to shut down the website using a variety of techniques, including exposing their sources to embarrass and intimidate them, and even litigation.
Considering that this document was considered “secret,” and presumably came from someone who had access to confidential files, the concerns may be valid. But the appropriateness of the response by the military towards a media channel providing a significant and overwhelmingly positive contribution to issues of public interest is also suspect.
The editors of WikiLeaks note that 2 years have passed without any exposure of their sources, indicating that this response may also be particularly ineffectual. They also point to inaccuracies regarding the editorial control of the site.
Even if the Army was able to shut down WikiLeaks, they concede that the problem is not limited to a single site,
Web sites similar to Wikileaks.org will continue to proliferate and will continue to represent a potential force protection, counterintelligence, OPSEC, and INFOSEC threat to the US Army for the foreseeable future.
Although security interests are pressing and substantial, when a democratic government administration is known to participate in systematic abuses of human rights and widespread violations of international norms, the balance of favour should continue to support sites like WikiLeaks.
Iacobucci to Investigate on Detainee Documents
Former Supreme Court Justice Frank Iacobucci was enlisted Friday to investigate whether the release of documents relating to Afghan detainee torture would cause an “injurious” effect.
The release of these documents – which could prove damning if they show government complicity in torture – was widely cited as being the underlying reason for PM Stephen Harper’s most recent prorogue of Parliament.
The unsettled issues here seem to be the following:
- Is this, as critics allege, simply a transparent effort to hide from opposition pressure to release the documents?
- Will Iacobucci actually be given all of the relevant documents?
- Should Iacobucci fear personal reprisal – à la Richard Colvin – if his findings do not please the Conservative government?
- How binding will his decision be, given that it’s not a Supreme Court reference?
- If Iacobucci decides that releasing the documents would be injurious, is a Parliament majority vote to release them nonetheless binding on the executive?
Iacobucci previously led an independent commission from 2006 to 2008 investigating Canadian government involvement in the torture of three Arab-Canadian men in Syria and Egypt. He found that CSIS and the RCMP indirectly contributed to wrongful detainment and torture of the individuals.
Former NHL’er Ramage Has Appeal
Former St. Louis Blue and Toronto Maple Leaf has had his second day in court. This time to appeal a conviction that led to a four year sentence for Impaired Driving Causing Death in connection with the accident that claimed another former NHL’er, Keith Magnuson.
The appeal will focus around two specific issues:
1. Was Ramage’s Charter rights violated through the collection of his urine at the hospital?
2. Should the court find that they were not violated, is the four-year sentence imposed by the Ontario Superior Court too harsh?
The court appears to be already leaning toward reducing the sentence through the words of Justice David Doherty who indicated
I think it’s fair to say we’re all concerned about the length of sentence.
To me this is an interesting case and one that affects me personally. I worked with many (if not all) of the officers involved in this case, however, this specific incident was before my time. No police officer likes losing a case because of an error that they committed (i.e. Charter breach), however, although the defence has suggested the officer wilfully breached Mr. Ramage’s rights. It is more likely the officer was acting in good faith with respect to the investigation.
But this begs the question. If an officer, who acting in good faith, breaches an accused person or suspect’s rights, in situations such as this, is justice better served in upholding a conviction or upholding a what would ultimately be a minor Charter violation.
You may wonder why I say minor? Because ultimately, although a breach may have occurred, a warrant surely would have been granted to obtain bodily fluids.
Discuss.
Are there inalienable rights in Canada?
We in Canada like to think of ourselves as free. We also like to think we have rights. The police can’t throw us in jail for our political views. And if they do throw us in jail for any reason, the police must let us call a lawyer. A part of Canada’s constitution, the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees our rights and freedoms. But the constitutional rights and freedoms such as freedom of expression, a right against arbitrary detention or imprisonment, and even our right to life, liberty and security, are not absolute. The Charter leaves loopholes for the federal Parliament, provincial legislatures, or even judges to limit or take away any rights or freedoms. There are no inalienable rights in Canada.
A legal right is a claim to a benefit. The law sets legal rights, and the courts will enforce them if no one else will. When you sign a contract to lease an apartment in exchange for rent, your tenant has a right to use the apartment, and you have a right to some of the tenant’s money. Your right is always someone else’s duty, which is either to give up the benefit you claim or to let you claim the benefit freely. You can also have rights against the government. For example, habeas corpus is a right to see a judge if the police arrest you. Freedoms are like rights but they are more about enjoying benefits you already have, such as speech or movement. Still, the flip side of every freedom is someone’s duty to respect it. For example, if you have a freedom of religion, the government may not ban your faith.
But rights and freedoms in our relations with the government are tricky because the government is a sovereign. It means that within its geographic borders the government writes the law. What good is a right if the government can scrap it? That’s where a constitution comes into play. It’s a superlaw that tells the government what laws it can and cannot write. And it’s very difficult for the government to change the constitution. The Canadian Charter is the part of our constitution that orders the government to respect certain human rights. If a provincial or the federal legislature passes a law infringing on our Charter right, the courts can strike that law from the books. It will have no force and effect. That way the Charter protects us from the government.
Even democracies need this protection to stop majorities from oppressing minorities. For example, our legal tradition has very good reasons for protecting some rights of the criminally accused. Only a minority of the total population will ever need these rights. Whether justified or baseless, a fear of crime can bring a party that wants to do away with these rights to power. In theory, our Charter will always stop the Parliament from touching the rights of the criminally accused. Before the Charter, the Parliament could throw out the presumption of innocence or the law against self-incrimination. A constitution can also protect racial, gender, or other minorities from discrimination. We can be sure of our human rights only when they are safe from the majority and the government it elects.
The Charter promises us this safety, but it doesn’t really deliver. There are several loopholes in the Charter that let the federal parliament, provincial legislatures, or the courts take away rights. First, the notwithstanding clause in s. 33 empowers legislatures to suspend fundamental freedoms (s. 2) and legal (ss. 7-14) and equality (s. 15) rights. Perhaps for fear of the ballot box, legislatures tried it for real only very few times. But if the government can suspend the rights, they are not inalienable.
Second, the most obvious limitation on all rights and freedoms in the Charter is in s. 1. It basically says that sometimes the Charter will not protect our rights. Suppose the Parliament passes a law that bans newspapers in a certain language. If the government can justify this law as reasonable “in a free and democratic society,” it can get away with it under s. 1. Who decides what’s reasonable and what’s free and democratic? Ultimately, it’s the nine people on the Supreme Court of Canada. Sometimes a s. 1 justification is a very hard task, but a right or freedom is guaranteed only if it’s legally certain, not if it’s probable or very likely. So the government can strip anyone of any Charter right with the consent of the Supreme Court.
Third, the courts decide what each right and freedom in Canada actually means. For example, s. 7 allows the government to deprive anyone of “the right to life, liberty, and security of the person” only in accordance with “the principles of fundamental justice.” The Supreme Court decides what these principles are. Next, the Charter often defines rights using the principle of “reasonableness,” which is really a code word for letting the courts fill in the details. See, for example, the right against “unreasonable search” (s. 8), the right to be tried within a “reasonable time” (s. 11(b)), etc. When the police breach our Charter rights to obtain evidence against us in a criminal investigation, we have a right to have it excluded from our trial—but only if “the admission of it in the proceedings would bring the administration of justice into disrepute” (s. 24(2)). Again, the courts decide what that means by applying factors laid down by the Supreme Court.
Finally, if the government breaches your Charter rights, the courts decide what compensation you get if any. It is little comfort to you and little deterrent to the government if the courts merely declare government action unconstitutional. Denied or insufficient remedies gut Charter rights and freedoms. As the recent case of Omar Khadr has shown, the Supreme Court can deny a meaningful remedy even for breaches of the most basic rights such as a right to fundamental justice in s. 7. Most Canadians don’t seem to like Omar Khadr or his family, so the majority is clearly not on his side. The Supreme Court didn’t say that it let the government off the legal hook because of the views of the majority of Canadians. But these views possibly encouraged the government when it violated Khadr’s Charter rights or denied him the requested remedy. What is the value of rights that depend on politics?
One can argue that these cases are extreme and that limits on our Charter rights are fine because we trust our government. After all we elect it. But consider this. First, majorities elect the government, and how certain are you what the majority will be like 20 years from now? Are you going to be in that majority? Do you want to entrust your most basic human rights to a majority? Second, even election rights in the Charter are not inalienable. Mix a national emergency with the right people on the Supreme Court (appointed by the Prime Minister; no Parliament’s consent required), and the words “reasonable,” “free,” and “democratic” in section 1 of the Canadian Charter can have a very different meaning.
The word “inalienable” expresses the idea of rights that the law can never let anyone take. An inalienable right is yours by the fact of your membership in the human species. No government or person gave you this right, so they can never take it away. It is yours by birth. It recognizes your inherent value as a human being regardless of who you are, what you did, or what you think. Very few rights can be inalienable but those that can are truly fundamental: a right to a fair trial, freedom of speech, habeas corpus. The US Declaration of Independence speaks of “Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness” as inalienable rights. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights recognizes “the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family.”
Our Charter does not have the word “inalienable,” neither in letter nor in spirit. It uses other words. But social conditions change, and what’s not “reasonable,” “free,” or “democratic” today can become such in the future. There is a fully legal path to breaches of any rights in Canada. It doesn’t necessarily mean it’s possible politically, socially, or economically, but legally our rights are uncertain. A constitution that fails to protect minorities from the majority’s changing moods does not guarantee rights. The loopholes in the Charter show that we have rights and freedoms only as long as the government and the Supreme Court let us. Rights and freedoms in Canada do not inherently belong to us as human beings but are revocable gifts from the government and the courts. And if we can’t change our Charter, we must at least hold our government to account especially strictly when it comes to human rights.
“Bleeding hearts in law school”
On Friday, Kory Teneycke, a former top adviser to PM Stephen Harper, was interviewed on CTV’s Power Play about the Khadr decision:
Here’s a transcript of the best parts:
Aside from showcasing the Harper government’s ideological approach to human rights, Teneycke’s dialogue serves to remind us of the importance of the Charter with respect to individual rights. As eloquently stated by then-Chief Justice Dickson, the Charter safeguards minorities from the “tyranny of the majority” (R. v. Big M Drug Mart Ltd., [1985] S.C.J. No. 17 at para. 96).
I personally hope that most Canadians would prefer to see an alleged terrorist brought before our functional justice system, rather than lower our justice system to a terrorist-like level of disregard for human rights. But even if the Harper government, and the majority of Canadians, wouldn’t care to see Khadr treated as a human being, there is still Charter-based justification for the judiciary (and the “bleeding hearts in law school”) to seek protection of his fundamental rights.
Responses to Prime Minister of Canada v. Omar Khadr
The anticipated ruling by the SCC in Prime Minister of Canada v. Omar Khadr was released today, and already there is criticism of the decision that ruled that although Khadr’s s. 7 rights were violated, the court could not order the Prime Minister to seek his return.
One of Khadr’s lawyers, Nathan Whitling, said,
He has never had a whole lot of hope in terms of the Canadian government, in any event.
One of Khadr’s other counsel, Dennis Edney, stated,
I will say that the court has the belief that … the Canadian government has a moral conscience and will do the right thing. I will tell him, ‘And that’s what we have to pray and hope.’
Alex Neve of Amnesty International, an intervenor in the case, stated,
It is not open to the Canadian government to just yawn and not take that seriously now. There has to be an effective response that demonstrates that this government is prepared to stand up for rights of Canadians and is prepared to take seriously judgments of the Supreme Court of Canada, even if the court did not feel inclined to say specifically what the Canadian government has to do here.
In a decision with so much responsibility shifted to the political arena, it’s no surprise that politicians are weighing in as well. Michael Ignatieff, leader of the opposition, said of the government,
The only thing it can’t do is to do nothing because the court clearly said that the rights of a Canadian citizen have been violated.
But some of the strongest critiques have come from academia, specifically the The David Asper Centre for Constitutional Rights at the University of Toronto.
In a press release sent to this site Diana Juricevic, Director of the International Human Rights Program at UofT Faculty of Law, stated,
We are very disappointed with the decision. Remedies have to be meaningful in order for Charter rights to be taken seriously. The Supreme Court of Canada has failed Khadr. They have left the decision on what the appropriate remedy is to the Canadian government, which breached Khadr’s fundamental human rights in the first place.
Cheryl Milne, Executive Director of the David Asper Centre for Constitutional Rights, said,
One hopes that the strong pronouncement by the unanimous Court that Canada has violated Omar Khadr’s rights and that the impact of that violation continues unless the government acts, will carry sufficient weight with the Prime Minister to persuade him to do the morally and legally right thing– seek Omar’s repatriation.
And finally, Professor Audrey Macklin, who acted as co-counsel in the case, expressed her frustrations,
The Supreme Court of Canada has spoken clearly, definitively and unanimously on the past and ongoing present violation of Omar Khadr’s rights by the Canadian government. It has pointed to a request for repatriation as an appropriate remedy for the violation of those rights. It now falls to the Prime Minister to do what the Supreme Court of Canada encourages but does not force him to do. If the word of the Supreme Court of Canada that the government has violated Khadr’s Charter rights and should seek repatriation is not enough to motivate this government to act, then I am not sure what is enough to motivate this government to do the right thing.
The Life and Times of Ivan C. Rand
From Volume III, Issue II of Amicus Curiae, Western Law’s Student Paper
Canada was a different place before Trudeaumania swept the nation, and the man we know as Ivan Rand, founding Dean of this law school and former Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada, was a product of his times. It would be easy to dismiss Dean Rand as an intolerant bigot, but as William Kaplan explained to an audience at Western Law on Nov. 11, [2009,] Rand was complicated character.
“Canadian judicial biography has been, with a few exceptions, mostly uncritical and largely celebratory, written by unabashed admirers,” Kaplan writes in his new book, Canadian Maverick – The Life and Times of Ivan C. Rand. “To my great surprise, this book turned out to be different.”
Ivan Rand was born and raised in the Maritimes and graduated from Harvard Law in 1912. It was his exposure to the American Bill of Rights that, according to Kaplan, differentiated Rand from other Canadian lawyers. And it’s Justice Rand’s decisions as a Justice of the Supreme Court that make his legal legacy so difficult to reconcile with his private views, which have been largely hidden until now.
By 1951, the court in Noble v. Alley assessed a restrictive covenant against selling property in the Grand Bend area to Jews, blacks, or those with “coloured race or blood.” It was Justice Rand who interrupted oral submissions by the respondent saying,“If Albert Einstein and Arthur Rubinstein purchased cottages there, the property values would increase, and the association should be honoured to have them as neighbours.”
Despite his position on restrictive covenants in this case, he was a member of two restrictive clubs that excluded Jews. He defended the right of Communists to hold elected positions, and famously opposed the internment of Japanese citizens, all the while refusing to meet his sister’s Acadian husband for 30 years because of his background.
“It’s this hypocrisy – because he did know better – that ultimately leads me to conclude: first-rate mind, third rate temperament,” said Kaplan, noting that the most influential judges are rarely collegial consensus builders. “Not such a bad combination.”
What, if anything, changed during his lifetime?
Kaplan suggests that Rand’s exposure to Jews in the Palestine Mandate may have led him to develop a more favourable impression of Jews. Rand was impressed by the largely secular, often highly educated and industrious, and was sometimes even disdainful of the religious establishment of the Holy Land. He believed that rational law could resolve all human conflict, and was a social engineer at heart.
Robert Mackay, one of Rand’s colleagues at Western who would eventually succeed him as Dean, recalls Rand’s rants against Jews and people with ethnic names that ended with a vowel: “Rand would declare he had enough of them.”
Yet he continued to donate to Hebrew University in Jerusalem for the rest of his life. A forest in Israel was named after him, and he would tour the country receiving awards.
So what is Rand’s legacy for this school?
Kaplan tellingly notes, “Almost all of his great civil libertarian decisions reversed the actions of state authorities in Quebec.” Mackay explained, “Rand had to decide who he hated more – the French-Canadian Roman Catholics, or Jehovah’s Witnesses.”
Rand believed that ethics could not be taught – either you had them or you didn’t. Western is now known as a pioneer in legal ethics education.
The Ivan Rand window in the Moot Court Room looms menacingly above all those who dare try their hand at advocacy. Rand himself believed that mock trials courts were entertaining, but not educational. He preferred his old 1909 Harvard law texts for the students.
Rand felt that women were good as solicitors but did not have the fortitude for criminal law, a notion that would not bode well for our classes in which women outnumber men , the legal aid clinic, or our struggling criminal law program.
Dean Rand defied utilitarian economics by taking surplus budgets and returning them to the university, much to the chagrin of his staff. He abandoned the administration of the law school only months after its opening to attend to a coal crisis in Cape Breton.
Yet the students loved him.
The Rand formula, where workers pay union dues irrespective of membership, is still one of the hallmark characteristics of Canadian labour law. One of Rand’s recommendations (which was never adopted) was that unions be recognized as legal entities that could sue and be sued [directly, and not through agents]. Another was abolishing picketing altogether.
Overall, Kaplan describes Rand’s own hand at labour relations as nothing less than “disastrous,” with nearly every stakeholder and political party expressing strong criticism. “Reforming labour law,” Kaplan said, “is best done incrementally.”
As our own Dean Holloway acknowledges, “it’s difficult to write fairly about Ivan Rand… What emerges is a picture of a principled man, who thought deeply about the best way to enhance the standards of this profession.”
Kaplan suggests that what makes Rand impressive is his ability to draw bright lines between his public and private life, especially when on the Court. And for a man whose vision in many ways may have been ahead of his time, perhaps that is the most we can ask for.
Insite Victory
The InSite facility in Vancouver won its most recent hearing at the B.C. S.C.
See more at Junkie Life
Panel Proclaims Prorogation Problem Political
An expert panel on prorogation was convened on Thursday at the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Law. The panel featured law professor David Schneiderman, director of Fair Vote Canada Larry Gordon, Globe & Mail correspondent Michael Valpy, and political science professor Simone Chambers, and its goal was to engage in dialogue about Stephen Harper’s second prorogation of Parliament within a year. The panel was organized by Law Students for Democracy, with Camille Labchuk and Daniel Goldbloom hosting and chairing, respectively, the discussion.
There were two fundamental questions that emerged from the debate: 1) is the latest prorogation legal? and 2) if legal, is the prorogation an ethical abuse of power?
It was conceded by all parties (with the exception of Larry Gordon, who spoke exclusively about voting reform) that the prorogation is legal. It is certainly the prerogative of the Prime Minister to ask the Governor-General to prorogue Parliament. Even if it is perhaps against the spirit of the constitution, there is no black-letter law against prorogation.
So if prorogation is legal, is it right? Without explicitly saying as much, the panellists suggested that the answer is No. Both Schneiderman and Valpy pointed out that the prorogation process has been substantively abused only three times since Confederation: by Stephen Harper in 2008 and 2009, and by Sir John A. Macdonald in 1873 to avoid an inquiry into the Pacific Railway scandal. Chambers argued that it’s a matter of degree: while every past prorogation has been for the advantage of the governing party in some capacity, one must examine the degree of partisanship with respect to the reasons claimed for proroguing.
What were Stephen Harper’s reasons for proroguing? Valpy stated the obvious, that all of Harper’s ostensible reasons are disingenuous (see e.g. the Economist critique of Harper’s “recalibration” reason). Schneiderman suggested that the real motivation was that Harper wanted to avoid having to turn over documents related to alleged complicity in Afghan detainee abuse. Schniederman detailed the history of Harper’s misleading claims that his government was legally obliged to keep the documents hidden – claims that were blown out of the water by Parliamentary law clerk Rob Walsh. Schneiderman suggested the possibility that, had he not prorogued, Harper and cabinet could have been forcibly removed from Parliament for not respecting the majority vote to turn over the documents.
Harper’s behaviour, said Schneiderman, is part of a broader agenda to Americanize the Canadian constitution – evidenced by Harper’s insistence on separation of powers between the Judiciary, Parliament, and the “Executive”; also evidenced by Harper’s desire for an elected Senate.
The panel agreed that the Governor-General did the correct thing in 2009 by agreeing to the prorogation. The Governor-General is not expected to interfere with political affairs beyond what is asked of her; her role today is primarily symbolic, and we wouldn’t want her to begin exercising her black-letter prerogative.
There was debate as to whether Parliament could create a statute governing prorogation. Chambers thought that this would require a constitutional amendment, which is very hard to effect practically. Schneiderman said that it might be possible, and a similar problem is playing out in Harper’s proposed Senate reform.
Perhaps the most crucial point came from Chambers. She said that while the 2009 prorogation is technically legal, it is dependent on the citizens to voice outrage at the audacity of Harper proroguing out of such blatant self-interest. The outrage is manifesting itself in the infamous facebook group, the 10-point hit that the Conservatives have taken in the polls, and the planned protests that will occur all over Canada tomorrow.
In short, the prorogation problem is a political one, not legal.
Ignatieff on Discrimination, Social Media
Michael Ignatieff, Leader of the Opposition, spoke to students at the University of Toronto – Mississauga today.
He addressed recent comments about airport security and the use of profiling, as well as discrimination generally in Canada:
He also made some interesting comments on the use of social media in politics:
Female Ski Jumpers Refused Leave to Appeal
In what must feel like a complete let down only two months before the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver, the Supreme Court of Canada has refused a leave of appeal by a group of female ski jumpers who are demanding for equality with hopes that they too will be allowed to compete alongside their male counterparts in February. The SCC did not release any reasons for their decision.
The women’s lawyer, called the decision a case of “textbook discrimination.”
The trials and tribulations began when the women launched a complaint with the Canadian Human Rights Commission. When that failed, they pursued a court action.
The IOC voted not to include women’s ski jumping at the 2010 Winter Olympics because the sport didn’t meet the necessary criteria for inclusion. The IOC requires that a sport must have contested at least two world championships before it can become an Olympic event. There are also rules dictating how far in advance a sport can be added to the Olympic program.
Union Rights for Agricultural Workers in Ontario
For the first time in Canadian legal history, arguments relating to the plight of Canada’s migrant workers will be heard at the Supreme Court of Canada on December 17th, 2009. The Intervention brought jointly by Justicia for Migrant Workers (J4MW) and the Industrial Accidents Victims Group of Ontario (IAVGO) will be heard as part of Fraser v Attorney General of Ontario, which relates to the right to organize and bargain collectively for Ontario’s 100,000 agricultural workers.
J4MW and IAVGO will highlight the particular experiences of migrant workers and how their rights are being violated under the following sections of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms:
Section 1 (The Right to Guaranteed Freedoms)
Section 2.d (The Right to Freedom of Association)
Section 15 (The Right to Equality under the Charter)
From their factum [para 9-11]:
The Respondents have identified the social, political and economic profile of agricultural workers in Ontario. Specifically, they are described as “a large foreign migrant work force that is legally restricted to working in agriculture;” many of whom are “non-white immigrants who have recently arrived in Canada;” and who perform the “fourth most dangerous job in Ontario.”
The Interveners further submit that this Court must recognize the intersecting enumerated and analogous grounds of race, gender, disability and citizenship that underlie the occupational status of many agricultural workers – a status that supports conditions for their continued marginalization in Canada, and restrains their enjoyment of essential freedoms. That is, “agricultural workers” are not solely identified as a group because they work in a particular sector in the Canadian economy; they are also identified by immutable characteristics, that is, by the persons they are.
The Interveners further submit that “agricultural worker,” itself, is an immutable characteristic because of its roots in, and proliferation of, indentured servitude. Such proliferation is seen in the structures of the federal Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program (SAWP) and other Temporary Foreign Worker Programs (TFWP) and, by extension, the agricultural industry. The essential dignity interests of migrant agricultural workers are undermined by the severe inequality and exploitation perpetuated by these structures. They are subject to stereotyping that limit the kind of work they are permitted to do in Canada.

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