E/CN.4/2006/7/Add.2
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resident, a judge shall commence a review of the reasons for the continued detention. The
measures aimed at protecting the confidentiality of information apply to this hearing as well.
Until the judge has determined whether the certificate is reasonable, the permanent resident must
be brought back before a judge at least once every six months. The judge shall order the
detention to be continued if satisfied that the permanent resident continues to be a danger to
national security or to the safety of any person, or is unlikely to appear at a proceeding for
removal (sect. 83).
45.
If the person named in the security certificate is not a permanent resident, he may apply
for release 120 days after the Federal Court determined the certificate to be reasonable. The
judge may order the foreign national’s release from detention, under terms and conditions that
the judge considers appropriate, if satisfied that the foreign national will not be removed from
Canada within a reasonable time and that the release will not pose a danger to national security
or to the safety of any person (sect. 84 (2)).
III. POSITIVE ASPECTS
A. Cooperation of the Government
46.
During the entire visit and in all respects, the Working Group has enjoyed full
cooperation of the federal Government and of all the provincial authorities it dealt with. The
Working Group was able to visit all the detention centres or other facilities that it requested. In
all these facilities, the Working Group has been able to meet with and interview whoever it
wanted, police holds, pre-sentence detainees, convicted persons serving their sentence,
immigration holds, women, minors, persons held in segregation quarters and infirmaries,
detainees identified beforehand to the Government by their name and detainees chosen at
random. In this context, it is particularly relevant to stress that the Government allowed the
Working Group to hold long private interviews with the three security certificate detainees held
at the Toronto West Detention Centre, as requested by the Working Group. The Working Group
reiterates its gratitude for the authorities’ transparency and cooperation.
B. Independence of the judiciary and checks on the criminal justice system
47.
Canada is a country governed by the rule of law, in which a strong and independent
judiciary strives to ensure that trials are fair and exercises a generally vigorous control over the
lawfulness of all forms of deprivation of liberty. On the side of the criminal defendants, legal aid
programmes provide representation to those who cannot afford it (with the limits the Working
Group will discuss below), and lawyers in private practice have traditionally seen it as their role
to exercise the profession also in the public interest by providing their services pro bono or at
rates below the market rate.
48.
In addition to the judicial control over the deprivation of liberty - and on a different
level - the Working Group finds the role played by public enquiries into cases of malfunctioning
of the criminal justice system particularly significant. Such enquiries have allowed the country
as a whole to look into incidents of unjust detention, from miscarriages of justice to systemic
discrimination against minorities in the criminal justice system, to the particular vulnerability of
Canada’s Aboriginal people when they come into contact with law enforcement. These
enquiries have clarified the systemic factors and root causes of several issues within the Working
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