Friday, February 23, 2007

Fundamental Justice Rules, Sorry Harpo

9-zip. The Supreme Court of Canada has ruled, unanimously, against the government's claimed right to be able to detain terrorism suspects indefinitely without trial. Sorry Harpo, but Canada isn't going to be reverting to medieval feudalism like your idols in the US.

The SCC suspended its judgment for a year in order to allow parliament to restructure the offending laws.

Chief Justice Beverly McLachlin said the security certificate regime offends the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, a pronouncement that is sure to send hundreds of Canadian rednecks frothing at the mouth in inidignation. She upheld the quaint notion that, if the government wants to detain somebody for a lengthy period, it has to accord them a fair judicial process. Talk about a half-baked, pinko idea, eh?

5 comments:

Concerned Albertan said...

Don't forget security certificates were a liberal invention. That element will be reconstructed, and unless a major policy flip happens be supported by the liberals.

Andrew said...

Put the crack away.

Harper (or the CPC) didn't invent the security certificates - they were created under the Liberals' watch.

Cripes..... it's great that the SCC struck down the anti-democratic anti-rights legislation, but don't try to turn this into a partisan attack.

Anonymous said...

It was a Liberal piece of legislation that was struck down by the supreme court, so I am not sure what all the gloating is about.

The Mound of Sound said...

The fact that the certificates were conceived by the Libs doesn't make the Reform defence of them any less egregious. Wasn't Harpo supposed to be the new enlightenment? It's his government that was defending it against a court he also has under attack. If Harper didn't want to defend it, he could have moved to scrap the certificates. Instead he wants to continue anti-democratic measures indefinitely. He deserves all the criticism he gets.

Jason Hickman said...

They weren't just "conceived by the Libs". They were put into place by legislation introduced by the Liberal government at a time when it held a majority in the House of Commons.

What's more, the government has been defending against these legal challenges since before the switch-over from Martin to Harper.

What's more (II), today the Libs (as well as the BQ) said that "they would wait to see what the government introduces, but in theory support a new security certificate system."

So putting all of this on the Tories, as your original post did, is a little bit much, don't you think?