As Canadian Courts stand up for Constitutionality and Legality, there is a lot to celebrate on Canada Day.
"..this is what we stand for: Justice, Truth and the value of a single human being"
(from "Judgment at Nuremberg" )
“Lawyers, as the guardians of Constitutionality and Legality, have a special responsibility to ensure that The Rules of Law are protected"
And the Rules of Law should be protected mainly and above all when "THE REAL COMPLAINING PARTY IS CIVILIZATION".
The return of Canadian citizen Abousfian Abdelrazik only happened after Federal Court Justice Russell Zinn ordered the Canadian government to fly him home.
Federal Court Justice Russell Zinn, in his Federal Court decision dated June 4, 2009, wrote about Abousfian Abdelrazik, detained in Sudan with CSIS complicity:
"He is as much a victim of international terrorism as the innocent persons whose lives have been taken by recent barbaric acts of terrorists."
(Court Decision in pdf HERE)
Regardless the United States "desire" in putting together a criminal case against Abdelrazik and CSIS complicity with his arrest, Canadian Courts prevailed.
(Mr. Abousfian ordeal was most probably triggered by an American government "wish", to which Canada bended without any restriction, as revealed by the Globe and Mail , June 20, 2009:
"“The U.S. would like Canada's assistance in putting together a criminal case against Abdelrazik,” John Di Gangi, then the director of foreign intelligence at Canada's Foreign Affairs Department, writes in the note sent to top officials in the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, the RCMP and other security agencies, following a high-level diplomatic request from senior U.S. officials."
article HERE)
At the end, the Rule of Law prevailed as Justice Minister Rob Nicholson said: "The government will comply with the court order."
Canadian Courts and Canadian Government decisions come as an answer to:
- a CSIS official who speculated in a memo in October 2003, that :
"It is unlikely that, should Abdelrazik's detention in Sudan become public knowledge, there would be the same sort of outcry that surrounded Maher Arar's arrest and deportation from the USA."
- Giuliano Zaccardelli, then RCMP commissioner, at a Senate Committee in 2006”:
“The tendency is for the Crown and Law enforcement to want to go to Court and successfully prosecute the case…CSIS would say that there may be another way of dealing with the matter. Particularly since 9/11, we have had to accept going to a disruptive mode…”
- Jack Hooper, then director general of CSIS’s Toronto (2001) to the same committee:
“At the end of the day, if prosecution is not viable, there are other techniques”.
As the Rule of Law slowly but steadily prevails, Canada is BACK TO REALITY!
Happy Birthday , Canada!
And as History has a lot to teach us, a piece of the film: “JUDGEMENT at NUREMBERG” follows.
It was the fictionalized account of real cases. The official title of the case is “United States v. Josef Altstotter and others” (1947) and Brigadier General Telford Taylor, the American Chief Justice.
“There are those in our country too, who speak of the “protection of the country”, of survival.
A decision must be made in the life of every Nation at the very moment when the grasp of the enemy is at its throat. Then it seems that the only way to survive is to use the means of the enemy, to rest survival upon what is expedient, to look the other way.
The answer to that is :
SURVIVAL AS WHAT?
A country isn't a rock. It's not an extension of one's self.
It's what it stands for. It's what it stands for when standing for something is the most difficult.
"For the people of the world, let it now be noted that here in our decision this is what we stand for:
Justice, Truth and the value of a single human being"
(from "Judgment at Nuremberg" )
The film was made in 1961 and tells the story of the prosecution of a group of lawyers for complicity in crimes committed by the German State.
Judgment at Nuremberg (1961) - The Movie
The film examines the questions of individual complicity in crimes committed by the state.
Although a fictionalized account of the post-World War II Nuremberg Trials, the film is notable for showing actual historical footage. It centers around a military tribunal in which four judges are accused of crimes against humanity for enacting Nazi law.
