Feb 27, 2005
This statement concerns the pending deportation of 65 year
old Ernst Zundel, who lived in Canada from 1958 to 2000, who has no criminal
record in Canada and who faces no criminal charges in Canada.
Mr. Zundel has been in solitary confinement for 2 years and
is about to be deported after a largely secret proceeding against him. The
Crown and the presiding judge met secretly throughout his case, in the
absence of Mr. Zundel and his lawyers. The Crown repeatedly presented
evidence and made arguments to the judge in a Star Chamber type proceeding.
At the public proceeding, Mr. Zundel was told literally
hundreds of times, when he asked for specific evidence of the case against
him, that there was “nothing in the unclassified materials” . He was
repeatedly blocked from asking questions of witnesses on the basis of “national
security”.
The presiding judge made repeated serious errors, forgot
submissions and repeatedly misstated the appropriate legal test about what
evidence should be kept secret. The same judge then evaluated the secret
evidence.
Mr. Zundel complained of reasonable apprehension of bias by
that judge. The same judge rejected Mr. Zundel’s argument and later
ordered him deported.
The Federal Court of Appeal rejected his appeal regarding
bias. It appears that the Crown will not wait to see whether the Supreme
Court of Canada will hear the further appeal Mr. Zundel has already filed on
the bias issue. The Crown will deport him NOW.
The Supreme Court of Canada has been asked, in Mr. Adil
Charkaoui’s case, to consider the constitutionality of the law which
allows secret evidence by which Mr. Zundel is deported. The Crown will not
wait until the Supreme Court decides whether to hear that appeal. If the law
is ultimately ruled to be unconstitutional, Mr. Zundel will likely hear
about it from a German jail cell.
Probably no one cares because Mr. Ernst Zundel is notorious
and reviled. The powerful and the popular do not need to rely on the
fairness of our legal system. The marginalized and the reviled do. Our
system has failed Mr. Zundel. We should care. But we fear most of us don’t
give a damn.
Mr. Zundel will not initiate any further court proceedings
in Canada. His repeated request that Canadian courts recognize his rights to
basic fairness and justice have been unanswered. He will not beg for those
rights.
Mr. Zundel has gone through the entire security certificate
process, unfair though it was, to a conclusion. He has no right to appeal or
to judicial review. He has gone to every available level of court in Canada.
For 42 years, he has vigorously defended his freedom of
expression within the Canadian justice system. All legal avenues have now
been exhausted, as has his faith in the Canadian justice system and this
security certificate system, which has been characterized by a Canadian
journalist, after witnessing part of Mr. Zundel’s proceeding, as a “frightening
charade of justice”.
______________________________ ____________________________
Peter
Lindsay
Chi-Kun Shi
Counsel for Ernst Zundel
===== ===== =====
|
Setting the Record Straight: Letters from Cell # 7
$10 - 180 Pages
Find out who this "premier thought criminal" really is -
how he thinks, how he writes, what he's really saying! You will
be astonished to learn why this man is so feared by the world's
manipulators of your thoughts!
Order form: HTML
format | PDF
Format |
Reminder:
Help free Ernst Zundel, Prisoner of Conscience. His
prison sketches - now on-line and highly popular - help pay for his defence.
Take a look - and tell a friend.
http://www.zundelsite.org/gallery/donations/index.html
Write to Canada's Prime Minister and complain
over the unfair treatment Ernst Zündel has received.
Prime Minister Paul Martin
House of Commons
Parliament Buildings
Ottawa, Ontario
K1A 0A6
Telephone: (613) 992-4211
Fax: (613) 941-6900
Email: Martin.P@parl.gc.ca |
|