by David Polk, in a letter to the editor
Source: The Ottawa Citizen
URL: [link]
Date: December 12, 2010


The Canadian system of justice is rooted in a thousand-year (and more) tradition of British common law. It might be a flawed system but it has, for the most part, served us well. We have always known that the rights of the innocent must be protected even to the extent of turning free the guilty so that justice will prevail.

Lately, however, the boogie man of terrorism has shown once again how tenuous our grasp of judicial civil rights really is. Like a red flag to a bull, the cry of "terrorist" seems to make us lose all perspective and toss away hundreds of years of legal precedent.

I do not know if Mohamed Harkat is a dangerous sleeper agent bent on destroying our way of life, but I do know that he is a man whose rights have been foully abused by our legal system. He has been denied the basic rights that we all should be able to take for granted. Held for years without trial and denied the right to see the evidence against him, he has had his private conversations with his lawyers secretly recorded and has been denied the right to confront his accusers. The list goes on.

If this were a simple criminal matter, he would have seen all charges dropped and the court apologize to him for the inexcusable infringements of his legal and human rights. We have not learned a thing since the imprisonment of the Japanese Canadians during the Second World War or the imposition of the War Measures Act. We like to think of Canada as a beacon of freedom and enlightenment -- the truth is far different and far uglier.

David Polk,
Navan, ON
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