Hi all:
Six of us attended today’s hearing at Federal Court, 180 Queen St. W., 6th floor. Barney and Gail Lorimer even came from out of town. Unfortunately the day wasn’t very productive. Court went from 9:30 am to approximately 10:30 am when it was adjourned until 1:30 pm but didn’t recommence until 2 pm. Then it proceeded until about 3:15pm.
The events that transpired and the reasons for adjournment were as follows: the first item of business was a request from the Ministers’ lawyers – ‘ML’ - to have the ‘Public Counsel’ – ‘PC’ - (as Mohamed’s lawyers are known) sign an undertaking that purports to protect ‘the Service’s’ (name for CSIS) sources – to keep them confidential. This undertaking had been signed by M.’s previous lawyers but not by his new team.
The essence of the undertaking is three questions that they are instructed to never ask a witness: 1.whether the witness has ever been a source for ‘the service’;
2. whether the witness has ever been approached by ‘the service’; and
3. whether the witness ever had a conversation with ‘the service’; and any question about the nature of a conversation with ‘the service’.
Judge Blanchard ordered ‘Public Counsel’ to sign the undertaking.
However later, prior to court commencement in the afternoon, one of M.’s lawyers told us about an article appearing in today’s SUN newspaper entitled: ‘CSIS accused of spying on GTA mosques’, by Tom Godfrey – http://www.torontosun.com/news/torontoandgta/2010/11/21/16249006.html
which produced speculation that there could be a connection between this news revelation and the urgency to have the ‘Public Counsel’ sign the undertaking.
The matter which required the early adjournment was the ML having presented to PC just this morning, copies of a new version of a summary related to M. which was different in some respects to an earlier summary in PC’s possession. PC had asked for this new summary last week(?) sometime. Comparison of the two summaries by PC is essential prior to examining an upcoming CSIS witness, so they asked for and were given the adjournment in order to study the new document. The ML lawyer said that he had sent the new summary to the ‘special advocate’ lawyers who were in the courtroom and one of them vehemently denied that they had received the new summary. Judge Blanchard reprimanded the ML for not producing this summary in a timely manner and ordered the adjournment until 1:30 pm. So that PC could study the new summary.
A third matter was the request by ‘Public Counsel’ last week or earlier(?) to be given the Redacted (some sections blacked out due to ‘national security) CSIS Policy documents from 1997 to 2010 – related to all of those individuals under Security Certificate warrants. Judge Blanchard had given a court order for these documents to be delivered to the court and the lawyers. PC wanted to have these documents for prior study and to be available for the examination (cross-examination?) of a CSIS agent who was present all day outside the courtroom. Public Counsel wanted to see these documents so they could determine how CSIS policies have changed over the years and if ‘the service’ agents have actually adhered to their own policies as part of their actions toward the Security Certificate individuals.
At the commencement of the hearing at 2 pm, the ML still could not produce the Redacted Policy Documents and all the ML lawyer was able to say was that it takes time for redacted documents to be produced and could they not go ahead with the court schedule of examining the witness, to which the Judge Blanchard pointed out how ridiculous it would be to do that without PC being able to see the Policy Documents first. Judge Blanchard’s response to the excuses given for the failure of ML to obey a court order and produce these documents was to dismiss the excuses and say in a firm voice, “Why isn’t the document(s) delivered?” Mr. Blanchard said he was disappointed in both sides for failing to communicate with each other better.
The ML promised the documents by some time later in the week.
PC said they would be ready to examine the CSIS witness according to court schedule. Judge Blanchard asked if the next witness, *Wesley Wark could be ready for tomorrow (Tuesday) and Wednesday and that was what was planned with the CSIS witness (who didn’t know his schedule immediately) being put off until Thursday.
Judge Blanchard then warned both sides that he was not there to ‘babysit’ the lawyer teams and that they were wasting the court’s time; it was not his responsibility to be sure that documents and witnesses were present according to court schedule.He ordered both sides to spend the rest of the afternoon meeting with each other to plan future hearings. He reiterated the schedule of court sitting – Monday to Thursday of each week for awhile.
Court was adjourned at about 3:15 pm
*Professer Wesley Wark – Faculty of Social Sciences; Graduate School of Public and International Affairs
Professor Wark is one of Canada’s leading experts on intelligence and national security issues. He is a Past-President of the Canadian Association for Security and Intelligence Studies (1998-2000 and 2004-2006). He serves on the Prime Minister’s Advisory Council on National Security and the Advisory Committee to the Canada Border Services Agency.
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