The longest, hottest summer experience in the city surely goes to Mahmoud Jaballah, who has spent the whole season in a city jail -- probably.

"Probably," because it's been impossible to determine Jaballah's exact status and fate. Mahmoud Jaballah is not a man I know personally. I became interested in him only when his lawyer, Rocco Galati, was reported last March to have withdrawn from his case alleging that fair representation of Jaballah was impossible since, among other things, Galati couldn't find out what he was actually charged with.

In mid July I contacted federal court officials in Toronto, who confirmed Jaballah was still in jail somewhere, but for security reasons they would not identify the jail. My request to learn the place and time of his next court appearance fared no better -- federal court officials in Ottawa told me it would not be possible to attend the court hearing where the judge will rule on Jaballah's fate since "the decision will not be read in open court."

This was unexpected. The judge in the case, Mr. Justice Andrew MacKay, said at a Mar. 11 Toronto hearing, "I believe I owe Mr. Jaballah the courtesy of making a decision in a public forum when I have had an opportunity to review the evidence. I anticipate that would not be before sometime next week at the very earliest and probably two weeks or more from now." Not only will the decision not be made in open court, but the "two weeks or more" has now stretched to five months.

I made a written request to interview the judge, and it was delivered by court officials. They have informed me that it was declined.

Sadly, this isn't a Kafka-like piece of summer fiction, some horrendous version of "American justice" according to which individuals are kidnapped and taken to an American-controlled compound, where they are held without charge and without being brought before a judge. This is Canadian justice being meted out -- perhaps for alleged terrorist activities, since Jaballah is said to have taught at an Islamic school in Toronto -- to someone who, like most other residents of Canada, arrived here from another country to make this one home. It shares some similarities with the recently reported case of Mohammed Mansour Jabarah, a Canadian citizen turned over by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) to U.S. authorities because of suspected al-Qaida involvement, to who knows what kind of future.

But the Jaballah case is happening in Toronto, our city. This is the real-life impact of the new security legislation, Bill C-36.

Jaballah has been in jail since Aug. 14, 2001 -- almost a full year. He arrived in Canada, apparently from Afghanistan, in 1996 with his wife and four children, made a home in Toronto and applied for refugee status, and since then much of his time has been taken up with government interventions that have been overthrown by the courts. His refugee claim was denied by the Immigration and Refugee Board in 1999, but there were allegations that CSIS interfered with the board's decision. While that decision was being challenged in the courts, Jaballah was detained by a national security certificate under the Immigration Act. That certificate was quashed by the court in November, 1999, and then in September, 2000 the court also quashed the refugee board's decision, and a new hearing on the refugee application was scheduled for Aug. 16, 2001.

But having the court on his side wasn't much protection: two days before that new hearing, Jaballah was again detained. His family was then told by government officials that they need not attend the refugee hearing, but fortunately Galati attended and argued strenuously against that directive, and the government official admitted the advice was incorrect.

Then came the attacks of Sept. 11 and the new anti-terrorist legislation, Bill C-36. Representatives of the solicitor general and CSIS met privately with Mr. Justice MacKay on four or five occasions, with neither Jaballah or Galati present to learn the allegations being made. In February Galati received a four-page document titled "Unclassified Summary of Information related to Mahmoud Jaballah," which he called a "wholesale, blind caravan of events and non-events from the avalanche of irrelevant newspaper articles and materials and a host of characters already dealt with in 1999 by Mr. Justice Cullen."

The double jeopardy -- Jaballah was being tried again on evidence already rejected by the court of Justice Cullen -- was compounded by evidence that neither Jaballah nor Galati was permitted to know. "I don't know what the case is to meet," Galati told Mr. Justice MacKay on Mar. 11, 2002 at a court hearing in Toronto. "I am sure you do, and I am sure my friend (the lawyer for the Solicitor General) does, because you have seen everything. I am in the dark."

Galati subsequently withdrew from the case, claiming that "the Court is being used as an investigative tool by the security forces without a judicial balance and fairness to the person in front of the Court."

Jaballah remains in jail, not knowing the charge or the case against him and without the ability to rely on the fair and independent judicial system that most Canadians have assumed exists here. What has this man done to deserve this rough treatment? We are not entitled to find out.

Appeals to the political process have met with little interest. On April 2, I wrote my member of Parliament, Carolyn Bennett, asking that she look into this matter. It was not until the last day of June that she forwarded my letter to the solicitor general, and one despairs as to when that answer will come and what it will say. A similar letter to Bill Graham, now the minister of foreign affairs, has never been answered, in spite of a follow-up phone call.

So it has come to this. In Canada you can be charged with an offence and not be entitled to learn the case against you. You can be put in jail for months and months with no remedy in the courts. Mahmoud Jaballah is experiencing the injustice that is now institutionalized. Hardly what you would call "glorious and free."