- Yesterday I ordered a reprint of Ernst's "Setting
the Record Straight: Letters from Cell # 7". After only two weeks,
the first edition is just about sold out!
-
- The book is extremely popular, and people are ordering
3, 5, 10 copies at a swoop to give to friends, relatives, church and club
members, etc.. I kept the retail price low on purpose - $10 plus courtesy
postage - because it is more important to me to disseminate Ernst's story
than to make money on the title.
-
- Also, in multiples of 100 copies, I will send you a shipment
at cost the moment I get the reprints. Write for instructions. (3152 Parkway,
Suite 13-109, Pigeon Forge, TN 27863, USA)
-
- Online orders
-
- If you are media, I will send you a copy for free, provided
you will promise to send me a tear sheet of a write-up or review.
-
- If you have a website, please consider linking to the
Zundelsite - or if that is too "iffy" for you, let me send you
an order blank to download, which you can place on your own website and
thus avoid the Zundel Taint. Any help at all will be welcome!
-
- If you live in Canada, you are better off ordering your
copies from Paul Fromm (instructions below) because you will get them faster
and you can pay in Canadian money and avoid the exchange rates. Also,
there won't be the problem with customs. So far, the books have passed
the Kanadian Kommissars, but you know how those lobby-obliging censors
can be - after I became associated with the Zundel name, they designated
a 1984 autobiography of mine, Furies, as "hate" material and
burned copies by the hundreds, even though it is the story of my having
raised a handicapped child, and I wrote it long before I ever heard of
something called Holocaust Revisionism! There isn't even a glimmer of
politics in that book, and there is nothing that a reasonable person would
object to in Ernst's account of what happened with his arrest and afterwards
- but just watch B'nai Brith or the Canadian Jewish Congress weigh in and
lay down the rules on what Canadians can and can't read!
-
- To change the subject - Paul Fromm sent a scary preface
about where the Zundel case is moving, if Judge Blais has his way - along
with the text of yet another legal submission to the Supreme Court of Canada.
If you are lawyerly inclined and would like to read the entire text, please
email me, and I will send it to you as an attachment. However, most of
my readers like their Zgrams short, and therefore I am just giving you
the gist of what this case amounts to at this stage by sending you a portion
from the text.
-
- Paul Fromm, one of Ernst's representatives on location,
first:
-
- [START]
-
- ZUNDEL CASE REACHES CRISIS POINT
-
- Dear Free Speech Supporter:
-
- We're hurtling toward a crisis point in the case of German-born
publisher and dissident Ernst Zundel. In a June 23 Order, former Solicitor-General
and CSIS boss Mr. Justice Pierre Blais set out a timetable which would
see the Zundel national security certificate review concluded by September
14.
-
- Cynics who have observed the judge's series of arbitrary
rulings, his quashing of four crucial defence subpoenas and his endless
chorus of "national security" to restrict the defence believe
that the judgement has already been reached. Mr. Justice Blais could find
the certificate "reasonable" -- not true that Mr. Zundel is a
terrorist, but merely reasonable that the two Liberal ministers who signed
it thought he "might be" -- on September 15. As the judge's decision
by law cannot be appealed, Mr. Zundel could be on a plane to Frankfurt
and a German jail on September 16.
-
- The judge is in a frantic hurry because he wants to preempt
the Zundel appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada. The Crown submissions
in the leave to appeal motions need not be in until late August. That leaves
just a few weeks for the Supreme Court to decide whether to hear Mr. Zundel's
two appeals. At the glacial pace of justice in this Dominion, Mr. Zundel
could well be back in Germany by that time.
-
- To forestall this judicial frog-marching of the German
pacifist out of the country, Zundel defence counsel Peter Lindsay has filed
the following motion with the Supreme Court seeking a stay (halt) to the
proceedings before Mr. Justice Blais until the Supreme Court can rule on
the leave to appeal and on the appeal itself. This motion makes shocking
reading as Mr. Lindsay lays out the outrageous and prejudicial treatment
meted out to Mr. Zundel in Judge Blais's courtroom.
-
- The Crown has until August 10 to make its submissions
in this matter. Then, says Chi-Kun Shi, Mr. Lindsay's co-counsel, the Supreme
Court "either stops it now or they show they don't give a damn about
this atrocity and all these illegal rulings" by Mr. Justice Blais.
-
- Huge expenses have been incurred this summer and we face
13 days more of court in July (27), August (9,10,11,12, 30, 31) and September
(1,2, 14, and 15). We urgently need your help and pledge of support today.
Please mail us your contribution to CAFE (Zundel Defence Fund), Box 332,
Rexdale, ON., M9W 5L3, Canada. Send a cheque or your VISA number and expiry
date. You can also e-mail your contribution by VISA.
-
- All donors of $100 or more will receive Mr. Zundel's
SETTING THE RECORD STRAIGHT: LETTERS FROM CELL # 7, which is hot off the
press. This incredibly eloquent and moving series of reflections from prison
will go down among the great prison literature of our people. If you would
simply like a copy of this book, send $20 (postage included) to us or $30
for two copies.
-
- Paul Fromm, Director, Canadian Association for Free Expression.
-
- [END]
-
- Below part of the latest Supreme Court Submission.
-
- 1. The Applicant relies upon the Notice of Motion herein.
-
- PART II - STATEMENT OF QUESTIONS IN ISSUE
-
- 2. Is it in accordance with our fundamental values of
justice to allow someone to be (i) tried in secret Star Chamber style
court proceedings and then (ii) deported to a country to be jailed for
views that are legal in Canada, without even first deciding whether this
Honourable Court will review important constitutional and legal questions
about the fairness of the process? It is important to underline that the
proceedings in issue in this case have been ordered by Justice Blais on
his own initiative to be completed by September 14, 2004. Regrettably,
the Applicant is thus forced to respectfully ask this Honourable Court
to act now. Failure to act now will effectively legitimize and condone
a 21st century Canadian Star Chamber.
-
- Should the answer to the above question be any different
if the subject person is notorious for holding provocative and extremely
unpopular views?
-
- PART III - ARGUMENT
-
- 3. The three-part test to be applied in determining whether
a stay should be granted pending a constitutional challenge or in other
circumstances was set out by this Honourable Court in Manitoba v. Metropolitan
Stores, as follows:
-
- (A) Merits of case - where constitutional challenge is
pending (as in this case), it is sufficient that the case raises a serious
question as opposed to a serious or vexatious claim. In all other cases,
a prima facie case may be required. (Para. 31-33)
-
- (B) Irreparable harm - whether the litigant who seeks
the stay would, unless it is granted, suffer harm not susceptible or difficult
to be compensated in damages. (Para. 34)
-
- (C) Balance of convenience - where constitutional challenge
is pending, public interest is taken into consideration and weighted together
with the interest of private litigants. In all other cases, determination
is made of which of the two parties will suffer the greater harm from
the granting or the refusal of a stay. (para. 35, 54, 57, 79, 83)
-
- Manitoba v. Metropolitan Stores [1987] S.C.J. No. 6,
tab 33
-
- (A) Merits of Case
-
- 4. The serious questions here involve the rights of any
immigrant whom politicians claim to be a danger to the security of Canada
and try to deport from Canada. Specifically, should any such immigrant
have any of the following rights:
-
- (i) the right to interlocutory appeal during a court
review of the politicians' claim, there being no appeal or judicial review
from the court's final conclusion;
-
- (ii) the right to real disclosure of Crown's evidence
against the immigrant; and
-
- (iii) the right to protection of the Charter while the
immigrant is detained and eventually deported without facing any charge,
such as protection against being subjected to a secret trial.
-
- 5. There is the additional very serious underlying question
of whether our law and our courts should treat people with extremely unpopular
views, such as the Applicant, differently than other people.
-
- 6. Furthermore, there is the serious question of what
should be done where, as here, the judicial errors in the certificate
review as set out in the Notice of Motion are so patently unreasonable,
and so palpable and overriding, that they destroy the underlying fairness
and legality of the proceedings and cannot be corrected on appeal (because
there is currently no right to launch any interlocutory or final appeal).
-
- 7. According to Re Felderhof, the following errors are
jurisdictional in nature: (i) gross denial of natural justice; (ii) irreparable
judicial violation of constitutional rights; or (iii) prejudgment. It
is respectfully submitted that all of these judicial errors have been
committed in the security certificate review thus far (). Unless the hearing
is stayed, such errors will never be remedied. The security certificate
review is not being conducted fairly or according to law and therefore
should be stayed forthwith.
-
- Re: Felderhof [2002] O.J. No. 4103 (C.A.) at paragraphs
15 and 17, tab 34
-
- 8. Relying upon the grounds as listed in the Notice of
Motion, which will not be repeated here, it is respectfully submitted
that the above questions are all serious and important questions and the
facts as outlined in said Notice establish that the questions referred
to above are sufficiently meritorious to justify a stay.
-
- 9. Furthermore, as there is a constitutional challenge
raised in the Charter Leave Application (Court File No. 30427) which is
being relied upon, the Manitoba v Metropolitan Store test only requires
that a serious question be raised. It is respectfully submitted that,
if nothing else, the detention of the Applicant without charge in solitary
confinement for over 16 months and the effectively secret trial which
is occurring right now in this case (see Notice of Motion, paragraphs
11-15) raise extremely serious Charter questions.
-
- (B) Irreparable Harm
-
- 10. With (i) no right to interlocutory appeal; (ii) no
right to meaningful disclosure; and (iii) no right to Charter protection,
the Applicant is poised to be deported to Germany upon the completion
of the Star Chamber style hearing fashioned out of the unconstitutional
Secret Trial Legislation and all the patently wrong procedural rulings,
without the chance to provide a meaningful response.
-
- 11. Hard cases make bad law, and there is no harder case
than the Applicant. It would constitute irreparable harm to deport the
Applicant without charge without first even deciding whether this Honourable
Court will review important constitutional and legal questions about the
fairness of the process.
-
- 12. Unless a stay of proceedings is immediately granted,
the Applicant's pre-ordained removal from Canada will occur and it will
legitimize all the "bad law" that has been made in this "hard"
case, some (but not all) of which bad law is as follows:
-
- (i) A judge may prejudge a case before it is completed;
-
- (ii) Politicians' motives and intents for deporting an
immigrant (even if they are completely improper) are of no interest to
the Court ;
-
- (iii) An immigrant may be deported without knowing why;
-
- (iv) "National Security" can prohibit discussion
of public materials;
-
- (v) A judge can initiate his own discrediting of cross-examination
materials;
-
- (vi) A judge may then disallow use of those materials
in cross-examination;
-
- (vii) A leading question is one with a "yes"
or "no" answer;
-
- (viii) A judge may make new rules on grammar;
-
- (ix) A judge may provide the Crown much greater latitude
than the opposing party on admissibility of evidence;
-
- (x) The words "could be" are interchangeable
with the words "would be" in statutory interpretation;
-
- (xi) A judge may liberally insult counsel;
-
- (xii) Procedural issues are more important than fundamental
justice;
-
- 13. Unless a stay of proceedings is granted, there is
a distinct message from all of this: it is justifiable to cut down any
number of principles of law and justice in order to "get" an
unpopular person. ()
-
- 14. A more recent opinion on the supremacy of the rule
of law is that of the U.S. Supreme Court in Hamdi v. Rumsfeld where Justice
O'Connor, writing for the majority, held that an American who was allegedly
captured while fighting with the Taliban using a Kalishnikov assault rifle
against U.S. troops in Afghanistan in 2001, is entitled to the "due
process of law" (p. 24) which should afford him the opportunity to
be heard in a "meaningful manner" (p. 26).
-
- Hamdi v. Rumsfeld 542 U.S. _2004, tab 32
-
- 15. If a country which had been attacked by terrorists
and suffered the graphic and public mass murder of its citizens on its
own soil still believes that a captive armed combatant should be entitled
to a meaningful hearing on his culpability, it is respectfully submitted
that Canada need to examine its own relative standard of rule of law as
demonstrated in the case of the Applicant. It is respectfully submitted
that the Applicant has not received the "meaningful" hearing
that the U.S. Supreme Court has championed for an alleged machine gun
toting traitor terrorist.
-
- 16. An even more recent opinion is from our own Minister
of Foreign Affairs the Honourable Bill Graham, who in the Zahra Kazemi
death recalled our Ambassador from Iran to protest the closed door hearing
for the Iranian accused in Ms. Kazemi's death and declared publicly that
"justice will not be done behind closed doors in Iran".
-
- 17. It is respectfully submitted that our Minister of
Foreign Affair's abhorrence of a secret trial reflects our value of openness
being the cornerstone of due process and justice. Justice will not be
done behind closed doors in Iran, in Canada, or anywhere else. The legality
of the Secret Trial Legislation and Justice Blais' error-filled implementation
of it must therefore be scrutinized if Canada is to maintain any credibility
in its demand for open justice, or as a free and democratic society.
-
- 18. Although traditionally, the consideration of irreparable
harm is limited to that of the parties involved, it is respectfully submitted
that in this case, not only does the Applicant face irreparable harm,
but if a stay of proceedings is not granted immediately, this proliferation
of "bad law" under the Secret Trial Legislation leads to the
inescapable conclusion that Canada believes that there is one law of open
justice for Iran and a different law of open justice for Canada. Furthermore,
it will lead to the very sad and disillusioning conclusion that there
is also one law for ordinary people but a very different and harsher law
for unpopular people such as the Applicant.
-
- 19. If the treatment the Applicant received under our
justice system thus far is not condemned and halted by this Honourable
Court, the Canadian society will in effect be treating unpopular views
more savagely than the Americans treat their armed combatant traitor.
-
- 20. As Justice Binnie of this Honourable Court rightly
pointed out in Re Application under s. 83.28 of the Criminal Code, upholding
constitutional rights at times of national stress is one of the chief
distinctions that sets a liberal democracy apart from the totalitarian
regimes whose threats give rise to the stress. In Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, the
U.S. Supreme Court has ensured such distinction for the U.S. It is respectfully
submitted that this Honourable Court must now rise to the challenge of
doing so for Canada.
-
- Re Application under s. 83.28 of the Criminal Code [2004]
S.C.J. No. 40 at para. 113, tab 36 Hamdi v. Rumsfeld 542 U.S. _2004,
tab 32
-
- 21. Justice Binnie echoed Sir Thomas More's centuries'
old view when His Honour wrote:
-
- The danger in the "war on terrorism" lies not
only in the actual damage the terrorists can do to us but what we can
do to our own legal and political institutions by way of shock, anger,
anticipation, opportunism or overreaction.
-
- Re Application under s. 83.28 of the Criminal Code [2004]
S.C.J. No. 40 at para. 116, tab 36
-
- 22. It is respectfully submitted that the case herein
is an example of opportunism. It is also the frightening harvest of the
above self-destructive sentiments. Unless this Honourable Court steps
in to protect our rule of law, this grim harvest will not stop with the
Applicant.
-
- [END]
|
