It's a legal maze for Canadian authorities abroad (Morgan | Globe & Mail)

[struggle4progress]

Ed Morgan
From Thursday's Globe and Mail, Wednesday, May. 27, 2009 05:18PM EDT

... In the latest case, the Supreme Court of Canada has refused to hear an appeal brought by Amnesty International on behalf of detainees in Afghanistan, confirming a lower court's view that the Canadian military is not restricted by the Charter of Rights and Freedoms when it operates in foreign terrain. The court saw Canadian Forces in Afghanistan as needing more leeway than the Charter allows in dealing with prisoners and in co-operating with our allies.

The point seems directly contrary to last year's Omar Khadr judgment, in which Canadian Security Intelligence Service interrogators in Guantanamo were held to the same standards as Canadian police when they investigate a crime at home. While the court pointed out that Mr. Khadr is a Canadian citizen and the Afghan detainees are not, that doesn't explain why intelligence officers should operate under a set of legal restraints that military officers are free to ignore. The Charter doesn't distinguish between citizen and non-citizen prisoners.

This year also saw the Federal Court of Canada pronounce that diplomats must lobby to support Ronald Smith, a Canadian murderer facing capital punishment in the United States. The ruling sidestepped international standards that give us the option, but not the obligation, to weigh in for a citizen in a foreign jail. Instead, it instructed us that the Charter of Rights has curtailed the government's discretion on whether to intervene in foreign legal proceedings.

The RCMP, by contrast, have no such worries. In the 2007 money-laundering case against Canadian businessman Lawrence Hape, the Supreme Court determined that the Mounties are free from the Charter's prohibition on unreasonable search and seizure when investigating a crime in the Cayman Islands. It's enough that they follow local police, who are at liberty to barge into a suspect's home without a warrant ...

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/its-a-legal-maze-for-canadian-authorities-abroad/article1156141/

[bemildred]

1. Expediency rules ... nt

[Demeter]

2. O Canada! Throw Out Your Bushbots!

You'll feel and smell so much better. And don't go halfway--get out of Afghanistan while the getting's good!