Saturday, February 24, 2007

Security Certificates

So the Supreme Court of Canada struck down some parts of our security certificate law that let the government hold non-citizens without a trial based on secret evidence of terrorist ties. So far, I think this was a good decision. As I've said before, I think these people should have fair trials because they're accused of fighting against the rights and freedoms that we have; it hasn't been proven that they're terrorists. I'm skeptical about the secret evidence because--while I respect the vast majority of police officers--the RCMP showed during the Maher Arar case that they sometimes find extremely flawed and even fabricated evidence against some people.

The decision to wait a year before this ruling takes effect is probably good too because we may need something to replace the security certificates. We should still have some way to make sure that terrorists who enter Canada don't get the chance to attack us, but I think the security certificates go too far. And since there is evidence against the people who are imprisoned, they shouldn't just be set free; they should be able to hear the evidence against them and defend themselves in court.

I'm not super well informed on this issue, so that's all I'll say. If this topic interests you, please search for other articles about it.

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