On Wednesday, March 26th, U of T law students and professors appeared as interveners before the Supreme Court of Canada as part of Canadian Guantánamo detainee Omar Khadr's ongoing legal battle to obtain disclosure of documents held by the Canadian government and thought to be relevant to charges brought against him in the United States.
The Federal Court of Appeal previously ordered the documents be disclosed, and the Canadian government is now appealing that decision to the Supreme Court. Students enrolled in the U of T law school's International Human Rights Clinic (IHRC) have been working closely with law professors Audrey Macklin and Nehal Bhuta, lawyers Tom Friedland, Gerald Chan and Monica Creery of Goodmans LLP, and clinic lawyers Darryl Robinson and Sarah Perkins over the past months to prepare for the hearing. The clinic made joint submissions with Human Rights Watch (HRW) as third party interveners in the case.
"This case is a tremendous opportunity for our students to help clarify an important human rights issue for our country," says IHRC Acting Director Darryl Robinson. "Law students and professors have partnered with law firms and human rights organizations to make submissions to the Supreme Court of Canada that will ultimately help to shape the way our government conducts itself internationally."
The submissions of the IHRC and HRW focused on the conduct of Canadian officials who traveled to Guantánamo in February and September of 2003 to interview Omar following his 2002 arrest in Afghanistan. Subsequently, the Canadian officials passed summaries of the information collected in the interviews to the RCMP and U.S. authorities.
The IHRC and HRW arguments are based on concerns that the conduct of the interviews and transfer of information obtained during the interrogation of Omar to the United States violated Omar's rights under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and his rights as a child under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. The IHRC and HRW will argue that disclosure is necessary to Omar's ability to make full answer and defense to the charges brought against him.
The role of the University of Toronto Faculty of Law was noted in new stories about the case, and Prof. Audrey Macklin is quoted in all three stories:
