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Aug. 19, 2005
Justice minister shares views
Terrorists are not freedom fighters, Cotler asserts at local meeting.
PAT JOHNSONR
Despite protesters outside, Canada's Justice Minister Irwin Cotler
faced a veritable lovefest inside the Jewish Community Centre of
Greater Vancouver Monday night.
The protest was staged by marijuana activists opposed to Canada's
process to extradite British Columbia's noted pot activist and entrepreneur
Marc Emery, who faces charges in the United States.
Cotler, a former national president of Canadian Jewish Congress,
spoke of how his concept of justice was founded on Jewish principles
and noted that the general vision of human rights and justice is
a universal concept that can be identified in other world religions
as well.
When he was appointed minister of justice 20 months ago, Cotler
said, he would not have identified the appointment of judges as
a central or defining aspect of the role. But now that he has appointed
jurists – including two Supreme Court of Canada Justices –
he sees judicial appointments as the real "legacy issue"
of his tenure. This sense of importance was magnified, Cotler said,
during the week when he was contemplating the Supreme Court appointments.
When he was attending shul that week, the Torah portion, from the
Book of Judges, spoke of the importance people in power have to
appoint the best judicial minds they can.
The minister, who shepherded through parliament the new civil marriage
law, which redefined Canadian law to include same-sex partnerships,
joked about the opposition from some religious communities over
the new marriage law. When confronted with ministers, rabbis and
imams opposed to the redefinition, Cotler looked on the bright side.
"You have to say one thing: I brought you guys together,"
Cotler said. But he was serious when he defended the law, saying
his government had no choice but to change the definition of marriage
after decisions by provincial appellate and supreme courts, as well
as an opinion by the Supreme Court of Canada, which were based on
the equality provisions of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
"We cannot pick and choose between the grounds of discrimination
we will accept and not accept," said the minister, a former
law professor at McGill University and a renowned international
scholar and activist on human rights prior to his appointment.
Cotler also took credit for what he said is the world's most gender-equitable
Supreme Court. With the appointment of Rosalie Abella and Louise
Charron, the Supreme Court of Canada has four female justices out
of nine on the bench.
Cotler drew strenuous applause when he condemned ambivalence to
terrorism.
"We have to jettison the false moral equivalencies when we
discuss terrorism – that kind of moral or political shibboleth
that says one person's terrorist is another person's freedom fighter,"
he said. "Freedom fighters don't blow up buses with innocent
people. Terrorist murderers do."
On the global front, the international community has an obligation
to intervene in cases where national governments cannot or will
not protect their people, said Cotler, adding that the post-Holocaust
Jewish imperative has catastrophically fallen on deaf ears.
"Regrettably," he said, "'Never again' has become
again and again and again."
He cited the Rwandan genocide of a decade ago and the ongoing human
catastrophe in the Darfur region of Sudan as exemplary of the world
community's responsibility to step in where national governments
fail to protect their people.
Cotler also condemned the persistence of anti-Semitism, in Canada
and abroad, saying intimidation will not succeed.
"We will not be silenced and we will not be intimidated,"
Cotler said. "We will assign anti-Semitism to the dustbin of
history where it belongs."
The justice minister said Canada is helping to build an international
justice system through the creation of national justice systems.
Canada has been involved worldwide, including with the Palestinian
Authority, to train judiciary to enforce the rule of law. Cotler
will host justice ministers from Israel, the PA, Egypt and Jordan
in Ottawa in late 2005 or early 2006 to discuss areas of mutual
legal concerns.
Cotler had been a strong voice for the extradition of Nazi and other
war criminals when he was a lawyer and academic. Though his current
position makes him more circumspect, on this and other issues he
stated that, "I did not park my principles at the door when
I became minister of justice."
Bringing war criminals to justice remains a priority, he said.
"I can tell you that the commitment is there," said Cotler.
"The overriding principle is that there should be no refuge
or sanctuary for war criminals in this country."
Though the pot protesters outside made no noticeable presence in
the meeting, Cotler responded to the issue, though he refused to
comment on the specifics of a case before the judicial process.
"If the matter is before the courts, it's not before me,"
he said. Under mutual legal assistance treaties with other counties,
including the United States, Cotler said, Canada has only one criteria
in responding to a request from a treaty signatory: whether the
offence for which the extradition is requested is also an offence
in this country. Marijuana is illegal in Canada.
Cotler was joined on the stage by his cabinet colleague, Vancouver-Quadra
member of Parliament and minister of western economic diversification,
and the Minister of State for Sport Stephen Owen.
Cotler and Owen engaged in a love-fest of their own, each using
the term "mentor" to describe the other.
Owen said that this country, like others, faces a difficult moral
and political balancing act between security and freedom. That balance,
he said, will be affected by practical realities, such as risk.
The evening, billed as a townhall meeting, was presented by Canadian
Jewish Congress, Pacific Region, and the Jewish Community Centre
of Greater Vancouver, in conjunction with the Jewish Political Action
Committee, the Canada-Israel Committee, the B.C. Campus Action Coalition
and the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver.
Pat Johnson is editor of MVOX Multicultural Digest.
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