Law Times

www.lawtimesnews.com Page 2 February 4, 2008 / Law Times NEWS Court battle continues until guarantees in place Despite the November deci- sion to suspend the transfers, the two human rights groups are continuing their Federal Court battle until guarantees are in place to prevent torture, and a separate request for a ruling that the Charter covers the Canadian troops and their prisoners is. An uproar last week over dis- closure by government lawyers in the Federal Court case that the Canadian Forces had secret- ly halted transfers overshadowed two days of hearings before Justice Anne Mactavish on the injunction application and the Charter arguments. Developments and argu- ments in the case that so far have received scant public at- tention include chilling allega- tions of beating and torture from Afghans who were handed over to the Afghans by Canadian soldiers. They are contained in moni- toring reports the government disclosed to Champ only seven days before Justice Mactavish heard arguments over the in- junction application on Jan. 24. The documents suggest the prisoners were receiving at the least a sympathetic hear- ing and close physical scru- tiny from the foreign affairs department monitors well be- fore the Canadian army finally halted the transfers. A June 6 report described a detainee as sitting "with his toes curled under his feet" when Cana- dian monitors interviewed him. "When he straightened his toes, it could be seen that the nails of the big toes and the one next to it were a red/orange on the top of the nail (although the new growth underneath appeared fine)," the report says. Champ interprets the entry as an implicit recognition that the detainee's toenails had been torn off. "General impression was that he was somewhat traumatized," the report concludes. Another June report quoted a detainee saying he had been hit on his feet with a cable or "big wire" and forced to stand for two days. "He showed us a mark on the back of his ankle, which he said was from the cable. [Note: There was a dark red mark on the back of his ankle]," the report says. One of the prisoners showed the Canadian monitors scars on his legs that he said were a result of torture. He also said he had been tortured with elec- trical shocks. When the Cana- dians told the Afghans they would take his allegations up with the security police, the detainee asked them not to disclose his name, out of fear of retaliation. At the bottom of that printed report, the monitors wrote this sentence in bold letters and un- derlined: "We would be grateful for further guidance from Otta- wa on the desired approach/tact we should take in this matter." Champ and Attaran were astonished to find on the eve of the Federal Court hearings that despite those descriptions and similar evidence, the trans- fers continued until Novem- ber. Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Defence Minister Peter MacKay have refused to say what now happens to any Afghans detained by Canadians, claiming disclosure could dam- age operational security. Attaran, who is also a biolo- gist, with degrees from UBC, Berkeley, Caltech, and Har- vard, and who taught briefly at Harvard University alongside Liberal MP Michael Ignatieff, said the government demon- strated a "lack of respect for the court" by keeping the de- cision to halt transfers secret until only two days before the injunction hearing. "They deliberately kept from us, and more distressingly from the court, the fact that they had known about it since early De- cember," he tells Law Times. Attaran asked Champ, who practises labour and human rights law at Raven Cameron Ballantyne & Yazbeck LLP, to join him on the detainee issue in the spring of 2006. The old friends had earlier joined forces supporting the Brazilian govern- ment in a successful legal battle against the U.S. over high prices for AIDS drugs. Attaran called Champ after he discovered the existence of a secret Canada-Afghanistan agreement on prisoner trans- fers signed by Chief of Defence Staff Gen. Rick Hillier. The dis- covery was made while Attaran was researching for a lecture as part of a Law Society of Upper Canada panel. He says their first real grasp of torture implications came in December that year, when he and Champ spent Christmas poring over "piles" of documents Attaran obtained through the Access to Information Act. "From that, we could for the first time really discover what was going on on the ground," he says. "We got de- tainee transfer records, detain- ee transfer logs, interrogation records of detainees. We were able to piece together what had been happening to some of them; that they were being fin- gerprinted and photographed by Canadian authorities and then handed over to Afghan authorities." MATHEWS, DINSDALE & CLARK LLP is pleased to announce the winners of the 10th Annual Canadian Labour Arbitration Competition which took place on January 25-27, 2008 at the Ontario Labour Relations Board Congratulations Dalhousie University Student participants: Jody Brown and Michelle McCann Coach: Lorraine P. Lafferty Assistant Coach: Eric Slone and to all the students, faculty, lawyers and arbitrators who participated in the competition. Continued from page 1 LT Benchers urged to move quickly on issue The report states that, in 2007, about 1,476 candi- dates applied to the licensing process. The report esti- mates an annual four per cent increase from that level. Most of these students are concentrated in Toronto and Ottawa, with 71 per cent in the Greater Toronto Area alone. "That is an issue for us, so we have to take a fresh look at this articling program," said Krishna. "We have now got to the stage where we have to take a completely fresh look at this entire program and ask all of the ques- tions and delve into all of the options and solutions." Bencher Heather Ross took issue with the report, sug- gesting that Convocation made a "promise", in altering the bar admission course a few years ago, "that the law society would dedicate much faster resources, financial, human, and otherwise, to an improved and more meaningful ar- ticling program . . . I don't see that that promise has been kept. What I feel I'm being asked to do is close a barn door after the horse got out," the Goderich bencher said. Ross said articling students are one of the few ways to attract new lawyers to rural areas, where a graying of the bar is leaving many communities without legal resources. "I think for small firms and sole practitioners and those who are losing lawyers at a critical time, this is an area of untapped information and education. And cutting out ar- ticling, in my view, is not the answer," said Ross. Toronto Bencher Avvy Go suggested a solution to the articling problem could come from Ontario's 80 legal clin- ics, which currently receive few articling students because they are ineligible to apply for law foundation funds. "So the reality is that there are public-interest or- ganizations out there who would be very interested in getting articling students," she said. "That would help absorb some of the articling students who are not get- ting positions, particularly those who are interested in litigation, and particularly those from many of the diverse communities." Ex-officio Bencher James Wardlaw noted that two previous law society reports considered abolishment of articles, and the profession rejected both. "The simple and the seminal question for Convocation on this issue is, do we really want to spend the money on this consultation when we almost know in advance what the answer is going to be?" asked Wardlaw. "Each generation has to visit these matters and some- times more than once," responded Krishna. "The de- mographics of the legal professions are not the same . . . The influx of lawyers and the emigration and reimpor- tation of lawyers; the legal scene was entirely different. We are playing on a different playground and we have to at least ask the question first as to whether the matter should be considered before we answer the question." Pawlitza urged benchers to move quickly on the issue. "It is important that we move expeditiously and let the profession know what is possible — what is potentially going to happen in terms of number, so that they can then begin to think about it," she said. "It's time." Continued from page 1 LT EXPAND YOUR HORIZONS To advertise in an upcoming issue contact our sales team: Karen Lorimer, 905-713-4339 • klorimer@clbmedia.ca Kimberlee Pascoe, 905-713-4342 • kpascoe@clbmedia.ca Sarah Abbot, 905-713-4340 • sabbot@clbmedia.ca Visit Law Times on the web at: www.lawtimesnews.com News Commentary Analysis Focus Sections CaseLAw Humour Law Times Your best choice for reaching Ontario's legal market. *Pages 1-20.indd 2 1/31/08 6:56:11 PM

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