Canada court rejects Guantanamo detainees’ bid to access intelligence records News
Canada court rejects Guantanamo detainees’ bid to access intelligence records

[JURIST] The Federal Court of Canada [official website] Monday dismissed an application [decision, PDF] by two Guantanamo Bay [JURIST news archive] detainees requesting access to Canadian interrogation records. Mohamedou Ould Slahi, a Mauritanian with landed immigrant status in Canada, and Ahcene Zemiri [NYT materials], an Algerian permanent resident of Canada, sought disclosure of records of interrogations conducted by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) [official websites] both in Canada and at Guantanamo Bay. Relying on the decision of the Supreme Court of Canada [official website] in Canada (Justice) v. Khadr [decision, PDF], and claiming protection under section 7 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms [text], Slahi and Zemiri argued that Canada was obligated to turn over any materials which had been given to American authorities. The court distinguished this case from Khadr on the grounds that Omar Khadr [DOD materials; JURIST news archive] was a Canadian citizen and necessarily entitled to section 7 protections, where Slahi and Zemiri's connection to Canada was more tenuous.

the Charter, … is a Canadian instrument enacted to enshrine and protect the fundamental rights of Canadians and those finding themselves within Canada’s territory. Its extraterritorial reach is exceptional and limited. … This Court is not prepared to extend the Charter’s reach beyond that which has already been decided. The Applicants are not Canadian citizens. They have failed to establish the required connection to Canada. Consequently, their circumstances cannot engage a section 7 Charter right.

The men requested the disclosure in order to corroborate their allegations of mistreatment at Guantanamo Bay as part of an ongoing habeas corpus petition before the US District Court for the District of Columbia [official website]. Lawyers for the men said that the habeas corpus proceedings would likely conclude before any appeal of this judgment could be heard.

THIS DAY @ LAW

Bank of England granted political independence

On May 6, 1997, British Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown announced that the Bank of England would be granted political independence for the first time in the three-hundred year history of the Bank. This policy was statutized in the subsequent Bank of England Act of 1998 gave the Bank independent control of British monetary policy effective June 1, 1998. Read the Bank of England Act of 1998.

Chinese Exclusion Act barred Chinese laborers from US

On May 6, 1882, President Chester A. Arthur signed the Chinese Exclusion Act, barring Chinese laborers from entering the United States and prohibiting courts from bestowing US citizenship on Chinese. Connecticut Senator Joseph Hawley spoke out against the Act in these words: Let the proposed statue be read 100 years hence, dug out of the dust of ages and forgotten as it will be except for a line of sneer by some historian, and ask the young man not well read in the history of this country what was the reason for excluding these men and he would not be able to find it in the law. The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 and its successors were abolished in 1943 at the insistence of President Franklin Roosevelt.