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Oxford University Commonwealth Law Journal Volume 12, 2012 - Issue 1
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Original Articles

Assessing Risk, Minimising Uncertainty, Developing Precaution and Protecting Rights: An Analysis of the Prohibition on Communication Between Terrorist Suspects and Special Advocates

Joseph Chedrawe Barrister and Solicitor (Canada). BA and LLB (Dalhousie); BCL and MPhil (Oxford). I am indebted to Lucia Zedner, Liora Lazarus, Laura Hoyano, and Victor Tadros for their guidance and helpful comments on earlier versions of this work. The usual caveats apply.
Pages 33-57 | Published online: 07 May 2015

  • Lucia Zedner, ‘Fixing the Future? The Pre-emptive Turn in Criminal Justice’ in Bernadette McSherry, Alan Norrie and Simon Bronitt (eds), Regulating Deviance: The Redirection of Criminalisation and the Futures of Criminal Law (Hart Publishing 2009) 35, 44–47.
  • Richard Ericson, ‘Governing Through Risk and Uncertainty’ (2005) 34 Economy and Society 659.
  • Immigration and Refugee Protection Act SC 2001 c 27 (CAN) (IRPA), Division 9: Certificates and Protection of Information.
  • IRPA (n 3) s 78.
  • IRPA (n 3) s 80.
  • IRPA (n 3) ss 77(2).
  • IRPA (n 3) s 78, ss 77(2).
  • Charkaoui v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration) [2007] 1 SCR 350 [58], [62]. The Government of Canada has said that security certificates are employed when there is a need to use sensitive information that, for national security reasons, must be protected: Joint Statement by the Hon Anne McLellan, Deputy Prime Minister & Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness & the Hon Irwin Cotler, Minister of Justice & Attorney General of Canada, ‘On the Occasion of Appearances before the Senate Special Committee On the Anti-Terrorism Act & the House of Commons Subcommittee on Public Safety and National Security' (Department ofJustice Canada, 14 November 2005) <http://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/news-nouv/spe-disc/2005/doc_31726.html> accessed 24 May 2012.
  • IRPA (n 3) ss 83(1)(b).
  • IRPA (n 3) ss 85.4(2).
  • Aileen Kavanagh, ‘Special Advocates, Control Orders and the Right to a Fair Trial’ (2010) 73 Modern Law Review 836.
  • Charkaoui (n 8) [68].
  • Charkaoui (n 8) [69].
  • Kent Roach, September 11: Consequences for Canada (McGill-Queen's University Press 2003) ch 7.
  • Craig Forcese and Lorne Waldman, ‘Seeking Justice in an Unfair Process: Lessons from Canada, the United Kingdom, and New Zealand on the Use of “Special Advocates” in National Security Proceedings’, a study commissioned by the Canadian Centre for Intelligence and Security Studies, with the support of the Courts Administration Service (University of Ottawa, Faculty of Law (Common Law Section), August 2007) 36.
  • Paul Craig, Administrative Law (6 th edn, Sweet & Maxwell 2008) 372;Jerry L Mashaw, ‘Administrative Due Process: The Quest for A Dignitary Theory' (1981) 61 Boston University Law Review 885, 941–1009. For additional discussions of instrumental and non-instrumental justifications for process rights, see Frank H Easterbrook, ‘Substance and Due Process' (1982) Supreme Court Review 85, 109–19.
  • Craig (n 16) 372; David J Mullan, Administrative Law (Irwin Law 2001) 147–48; Daphne Barak-Erez and Matthew C Waxman, ‘Secret Evidence and the Due Process of Terrorist Detentions' (2009) 48 Columbia Journal Transnational Law 3, 38.
  • Craig (n 16) 372; Mullan (n 17) 148; Mark Elliott, ‘Stop Press: Kafkaesque Procedures are Unfair’ (2009) 68 Cambridge Law Journal 495, 497; Mashaw (n 16) 946. See also Denis Galligan, Due Process and Fair Procedures: A Study of Administrative Procedures (OUP 1996), who demonstrates some skepticism about the dignitarian rationale.
  • Craig (n 16) 372; HLA Hart, Concept of Law (Clarendon Press 1961) 156, 202.
  • Barak-Erez and Waxman (n 17) 31.
  • Barak-Erez and Waxman (n 17) 35, 41–42.
  • Mullan (n 17) 149.
  • Mashaw (n 16) 889; Mullan (n 17) 147–48.
  • Dwight Hamilton, ‘In The Army’ in Dwight Hamilton (ed), Inside Canadian Intelligence: Exposing the New Realities of Espionage and International Terrorism (Dundurn Press 2006) 139, 146.
  • CSIS, ‘Backgrounder No 3–CSIS and the Security Intelligence Cycle' (Revised February 2004) <https://www.csis-scrs.gc.ca/nwsrm/bckgrndrs/bckgrndr03-eng.asp> accessed 24 May 2012.
  • Canadian Security Intelligence Service Act RSC 1985 c C-23 (CAN) (CSIS Act) s 12.
  • CSIS, ‘Backgrounder No 8–Counter-Terrorism' (Revised June 2007) <http://www.csis-scrs.gc.ca/nwsrm/bckgrndrs/bckgrndr08-eng.asp> accessed 24 May 2012.
  • CSIS Act (n 26) sch (Section 10) ‘Oath of Secrecy’.
  • Hamilton (n 24) 149.
  • Kostas Rimsa, ‘The Horsemen’ in Hamilton (n 24) 49, 58.
  • Lord Carlile of Berriew QC, ‘Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001 Part IV Section 28 Review 2003’.
  • Hamilton (n 24) 146.
  • Gus Van Harten, ‘Weaknesses of adjudication in the face of secret evidence’ (2009) 13 International Journal of Evidence and Proof 1, 4.
  • Dwight Hamilton, ‘The Unusual Suspects’ in Hamilton (n 24) 99, 111.
  • The United Kingdom-United States of America Agreement (5 March 1946) (The National Archives, files released June 2010) <http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ukusa/> accessed 24 May 2012.
  • Canada has seen the introduction of Bill C-409, proposed federal legislation for the creation of an agency to engage in international gathering of security intelligence, but the Bill has not seen progress.
  • Ruby v Canada [2002] 4 SCR 3 [44].
  • Charkaoui (n 8) [65].
  • Charkaoui (n 8) [87].
  • Charkaoui (n 8) [87].
  • Charkaoui (n 8) [81].
  • Harten (n 33) 22.
  • Harten (n 33) 21.
  • A v United Kingdom [2009] ECHR 3455/05 (Grand Chamber) [220].
  • AF (No 3) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2009] UKHL 28, [59].
  • It is worth noting that in January 2012, the United Kingdom replaced the control order regime with the new Terrorism Prevention and Investigation Measures (TPIMs), but the new measure still incorporates the prohibition on communication: Terrorism Prevention and Investigation Measures Act 2011.
  • Charkaoui (n 8) [140].
  • IRPA (n 3) ss 83(1)(b).
  • David Jenkins, ‘There and Back Again: The Strange Journey of Special Advocates and Comparative Law Methodology’ (2011) 42 Columbia Human Rights Law Review 279, 280–82.
  • JUSTICE Report, ‘Secret Evidence’ (June 2009) 169–71 <http://www.justice.org.uk/data/files/resources/33/Secret-Evidence-10-June-2009.pdf> accessed 24 May 2012; John Norris, ‘Security Certificates after Charkaoui’ (2010) 6a-20-;6a-22 (unpublished); Nicholas Blake QC, ‘The Role of the Special Advocate’ (26 March 2007) 3–4 (unpublished), cited in Forcese and Waldman (n 15) 32; Barak-Erez and Waxman (n 17) 28–31.
  • Forcese and Waldman (n 15) 44.
  • Forcese and Waldman (n 15) 40–43; Barak-Erez and Waxman (n 17) 27–31.
  • Lord Carlile of Berriew QC, ‘Anti-Terrorism, Crime And Security Act 2001 Part IV Section 28 Review 2004' [74].
  • Blake (n 50) 3–4.
  • The term ‘tainting’ refers to the special advocate's knowledge of the closed material and emerged from the United Kingdom. It is used here in the Canadian context for ease-of-reference: Forcese and Waldman (n 15) 28.
  • Roberts v Parole Board [2005] UKHL 45 [18].
  • IRPA (n 3) ss 85.4(2).
  • Re Almrei 2009 FC 1263 [40]-[41]; ReHarkat, [2009] FCR 528 [34].
  • Martin Chamberlain, ‘Special Advocates and procedural fairness in closed proceedings’ (2009) 28 Civil Justice Quarterly 314, 322.
  • Parliament of Canada, Special Senate Committee on the Anti-Terrorism Act, ‘Fundamental Justice in Extraordinary Times' (February 2007) 35. <http://www.parl.gc.ca/39/17parlbus/commbus/senate/com-e/anti-e/rep-e/rep02feb07-e.htm> accessed 24 May 2012.
  • Canada Senate Committee (n 60) 35.
  • Canada Senate Committee (n 60) 35.
  • Canada Senate Committee (n 60) 42.
  • Canada Senate Committee (n 60) 42.
  • Canada Senate Committee (n 60) 42.
  • Lord Carlile 2004 (n 53) [78]; Joint Committee on Human Rights, Review of Counter-terrorism Powers (2003-04, HL Paper 158, HC 713) [40]; Constitutional Affairs Committee, The operation of the Special Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC) and the use of Special Advocates (HC 2004-05,323-I) 33.
  • Secretary of State for Justice, Justice and Security Green Paper (Cm 8194, 2011) xi, 25 <http://www.official-documents.gov.uk/document/cm81/8194/8194.pdf> accessed 24 May 2012.
  • Green Paper (n 67) 25.
  • Green Paper (n 67) 26.
  • Green Paper (n 67) 26.
  • ‘Liberty's response to the Ministry of Justice's Green Paper—Justice and Security' (January 2012) 11 <http://www.liberty-human-rights.org.uk/pdfs/policy12/liberty-s-response-to-the-ministry-of-justice-consultati.pdf> accessed 24 May 2012.
  • Adam Tomkins and Tom Hickman, ‘Bingham Centre for the Rule of Law Response to the Justice and Security Green Paper’ (6 January 2012) 19 <http://www.biicl.org/files/5829_bingham_centre_response_to_green_paper.pdf> accessed 24 May 2012.
  • Tomkins and Hickman (n 72) 20.
  • Amnesty International, ‘Justice perverted under the Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001' (AI Index: EUR 45/029/2003, 11 December 2003) citing Ian Macdonald QC, a former UK special advocate, who resigned in protest of the system and wrote that his ‘role was to provide a fig leaf of respectability and a false legitimacy to indefinite detention without knowledge of the accusations being made and without any kind of criminal charge or trial’.
  • Maureen T Duffy, ‘“The Slow Creep of Complacency”: Ongoing Challenges for Democracies Seeking to Detain Terrorism Suspects’ (April 2010) Pace International Law Review Online Companion 42, 42; Barak-Erez and Waxman (n 17) 31–32.
  • ‘Call for “fairer” terror trials' (3 April 2005) <http://news.bbc.co.uk/1Zhi/uk_politics/4405415.stm> accessed 24 May 2012.
  • Barak-Erez and Waxman (n 17) 31–32.
  • Barak-Erez and Waxman (n 17) 30.
  • Andrew Ashworth, ‘Security, Terrorism and the Value of Human Rights’ in Benjamin Goold and Liora Lazarus (eds), Security and Human Rights (Hart Publishing 2007) 209–10; Duffy (n 75) 42.
  • Ericson, ‘Governing Through Risk’ (n 2) 659; Claudia Aradau and Rens van Munster, ‘Governing Terrorism Through Risk: Taking Precautions, (un)Knowing the Future' (2007) 13 European Journal of International Relations 89; Didier Bigo and Elspeth Guild, ‘The Worst-case Scenario and the Man on the Clapham Omnibus' in Goold and Lazarus (n 79) 112.
  • Ulrich Beck, ‘The Terrorist Threat: World Risk Society Revisited’ (2002) 19 Theory, Culture and Society 4, 39–55.
  • Ulrich Beck, Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity (Sage 1992) 13.
  • Aradau and van Munster (n 80) 102.
  • Roach, September 11 (n 14) 174.
  • Rio Declaration on Environment and Development, UN DocA/CONF151/26 (Vol I) 31 ILM 874 (1992).
  • Zedner, ‘Fixing the Future’ (n 1) 37.
  • Stephen Gardiner, ‘A Core Precautionary Principle’ (2006) 1 Journal of Political Philosophy 33.
  • Elizabeth Fisher, ‘Risk and Environmental Law: A Beginner's Guide’ in Benjamin Richardson and Stepan Wood (eds), Environmental Law for Sustainability: A Critical Reader (Hart Publishing 2005).
  • Lucia Zedner, ‘Seeking Security By Eroding Rights: The Side-stepping of Due Process’ in Goold and Lazarus (n 79) 261.
  • See eg Michael Ignatieff, The Lesser Evil: Political Ethics in an Age of Terror (Edinburgh University Press 2004); Richard Posner, Catastrophe: Risk and Response (OUP 2004).
  • Elizabeth Fisher, ‘Is the Precautionary Principle Justiciable?’ (2001) 13 Journal of Environmental Law 315, 316.
  • Lucia Zedner, ‘Terrorism and Counterterrorism: What is at Risk?’ in Layla Skinns, Michael Scott and Timothy Cox (eds), Risk (CUP 2010) 2–3, 12; Roach, September 11 (n 14) 174.
  • Roach, September 11 (n 14) 174.
  • Zedner (n 92) 14.
  • Zedner (n 92) 11.
  • Jeremy Waldron, ‘Security and Liberty: The Image of Balance’ (2003) 11 Journal of Political Philosophy 191, 191–95.
  • Waldron (n 96) 209.
  • Waldron (n 96) 200–04.
  • Waldron (n 96) 203–04.
  • Zedner, ‘Fixing the Future’ (n 1) 42.
  • Victor Ramraj, ‘Terrorism, Risk Perception and Judicial Review’ in Victor V Ramraj, Michael Hor and Kent Roach (eds), Global Anti-Terrorism Law and Policy (CUP 2005).
  • Ramraj (n 101) 107. See also Roger Kasperson et al, ‘The Social Amplification of Risk: A Conceptual Framework' in Paul Slovic (ed), The Perception of Risk (Earthscan Publications 2000) 232–45.
  • Cass Sunstein, ‘Terrorism and Probability Neglect’ (2003) 26 The Journal of Risk and Uncertainty 121, 121–22.
  • Waldron (n 96) 209.
  • Ramraj (n 101) 108.
  • Forcese and Waldman (n 15) 9.
  • The Hon Justice Rosalie Abella, ‘Judging in the 21st Century' (2002) 25 Advocates' Quarterly 131 at 138–39.
  • Aradau and van Munster (n 80) 103.
  • Mariana Valverde, ‘Governing Security, Governing Through Security’ in Ronald J Daniels, Patrick Macklem and Kent Roach (eds), The Security of Freedom: Essays on Canada's Anti-Terrorism Bill (University of Toronto Press 2001); Ramraj (n 101) 126; Bigo and Guild (n 80) 99; Sunstein (n 103) 121.
  • Valverde (n 109) 84.
  • Valverde (n 109) 84.
  • Valverde (n 109) 84.
  • By way of example, Bigo and Guild (n 80) promote reasonable foreseeability and Sunstein (n 103) promotes probability.
  • Zedner, ‘Fixing the Future’ (n 1) 45.
  • Zedner, ‘Fixing the Future’ (n 1) 55.
  • Zedner, ‘Fixing the Future’ (n 1) 45.
  • Zedner, ‘Fixing the Future’ (n 1) 58.
  • Zedner, ‘Fixing the Future’ (n 1) 58.
  • Forcese and Waldman (n 15).
  • Forcese and Waldman (n 15) ii.
  • Forcese and Waldman (n 15) 28.
  • Forcese and Waldman (n 15) 5.
  • Charkaoui (n 8) [77].
  • Forcese and Waldman (n 15) 9. Forcese and Waldman also describe lingering doubts from UK special advocates regarding the utility of meeting with named persons once in closed given the restricted questioning. However, given the SIRC experience of obtaining critical information from the suspect ‘in closed’ and the experience of special advocates in Canada who continue to press for additional post-tainting communication, there is no imaginable scenario where having some communication would be less advantageous than having no communication at all.
  • Forcese and Waldman (n 15) 21.
  • Forcese and Waldman (n 15) 21.
  • Forcese and Waldman (n 15) 58.
  • R v Malik andBagri 2005 BCSC 350.
  • Kent Roach, ‘Ten Ways to Improve Canadian Anti-terrorism Law’ (2005) 50 Criminal Law Quarterly 102,119–20.
  • Ramraj (n 101) 107.
  • Thomas Poole, ‘Recent Developments in the War on Terrorism in Canada’ (2007) 7 Human Rights Law Review 633, 633.
  • Dunsmuir v New Brunswick, 2008 SCC 9, [2008] 1 SCR 190.
  • Zedner (n 92) 13; Cass Sunstein, Laws of Fear: Beyond the Precautionary Principle (CUP 2005).
  • R v Oakes [1986] 1 SCR 103, [70].
  • Charkaoui (n 8) [68].
  • Charkaoui (n 8) [68].
  • Charkaoui (n 8) [69].
  • Charkaoui (n 8) [69].
  • Charkaoui (n 8) [69].
  • It is worth noting that Canadian courts have not yet considered the question of whether the prohibition on communication infringes rights.
  • John Ip, ‘The Rise and Spread of the Special Advocate' [2008] Public Law 717, 735.
  • IRPA (n 3) s 85.1.
  • Barak-Erez and Waxman (n 17) citing the UK, US, Canada and Israel to name just a few.
  • Norris (n 50) 6a-1.
  • Norris (n 50) 6a-1.
  • Norris (n 50) 6a-1.
  • Andrew Ashworth, ‘Criminal Justice Reform: Principles, Human Rights and Public Protection’ [2004] Criminal Law Review 516.
  • Waldron (n 96) 190.
  • Waldron (n 96) 203.
  • Waldron (n 96) 200–05.
  • Waldron (n 96) 209–10.
  • Liora Lazarus and Benjamin J Goold, ‘Introduction: Security and Human Rights: The Search for a Language of Reconciliation’ in Goold and Lazarus (n 79) 1.
  • Shlomit Wallerstein, ‘The State's Duty of Self-defence: Justifying the Expansion of Criminal Law’, in Goold and Lazarus (n 79); Sandra Fredman, ‘The Positive Right to Security’ in Goold and Lazarus (n 79) 307; Liora Lazarus, ‘Mapping the Right to Security’ in Goold and Lazarus (n 79)
  • Andrew Ashworth and Lucia Zedner, ‘Preventive Orders: A Problem of Under-criminalization?’ in R Antony Duff et al (eds) The Boundaries of the Criminal Law (OUP 2010) 10.
  • Ashworth and Zedner (n 154) 10.
  • Oren Gross, ‘Cutting Down Trees’ in Daniels, Macklem and Roach (eds) (n 109) 41; Roach, ‘Judicial Review (n 153) 162.
  • ‘Amnesty International's submission of 14 October to the UK Parliament's Joint Committee on Human Rights in connection with the Committee's inquiry into the subject of “counter-terrorism policy and human rights“' (October 2005) <http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/EUR45/050/2005/en/a8d3963b-d494–11dd-8a23-d58a49c0d652/eur450502005en.pdf> accessed 16 January 2012.
  • British MPAJenkins (29 November 1974) HC Deb (Vol 833) debating the Prevention of Terrorism (Temporary Provisions) Act, 1974, following the bombing of two public houses in Birmingham.
  • Gross (n 156) 42; Susan Edwards, ‘Human Sacrifices at the Altar of Terrorist Control’ (2008) 20 Denning Law Journal 221.
  • Edwards (n 159) 221.
  • Gross (n 156) 42.
  • Ian Loader, ‘The Cultural Lives of Security and Rights’ in Goold and Lazarus (n 79) 27.
  • Lucia Zedner, ‘Preventive Justice or Pre-Punishment? The Case of Control Orders’ (2007) 60 Current Legal Problems 174, 203.

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