Lawyer backed anti-terrorism bill: Says he’ll promote human rights

Cotler not afraid to speak his mind

by Tonda
MacCharles

OTTAWA The first thing you need to know about the new Justice Minister Irwin
Cotler renowned human rights scholar and advocate is he will speak his mind.The second thing you need to know about Cotler, the law professor, is that he loves lists.

So the first thing on his list yesterday was to meet with his new justice officials, but not before he spoke his mind about his new job.

And that’s where things got interesting.Cotler, 63, told reporters he personally supports the marijuana decriminalization bill, a public inquiry into the
Maher Arar case, and believes the same-sex marriage reference to the Supreme Court of Canada should be broadened to ask the high court to review all options including whether “civil unions” would meet the requirements of equality guaranteed in the
Charter.”

As a law professor my view was that in the context of a reference, then the broadest possible options should be put before the court to allow for the broadest possible discussion and debate, and to allow for the most comprehensive and informed advisory opinion.

“But as justice minister, he said, he could not respond directly. “That’s not a copout, that’s being a responsible minister who’s about to meet his officials today, and we’ll discuss it and then we’ll then come forward with our position.”

The press secretary to Prime Minister Paul
Martin, sensing trouble, struggled to cut off reporters’ persistent questions to Cotler only to give up.Then hours later, the first question that confronted Martin at his first formal news conference as Prime Minister was whether he would expand the questions asked to the Supreme Court on the issue of gay marriage a move almost certain to delay the high court hearing now scheduled for
April.

“We will be discussing this in cabinet,” said
Martin, who repeated his ambiguous position that
“we’ve got to support the Charter of Rights.”

The appointment of
Yale-educated Cotler, a Jewish Montrealer and a
former head of the Canadian
Jewish Congress, as
the country’s leading lawmaker is at once a
thoughtful, daring move, yet perhaps a risky
one. John Asfour, past president of the
Canadian Arab Federation, said Cotler’s
pro-Israel comments could get in the way of his
job as justice minister, reported Canadian
Press.

“Mr. Cotler and some of the Jewish lobby have supported (Israel) blindly,” Asfour said in an interview. Martin called Cotler, MP for Pierre
Trudeau‘s old riding of Mount Royal, Thursday with the offer of a lifetime.”

He mentioned to me something to the effect that
‘what do you do with a guy who has all kinds of ideas about human rights in terms of justice?'”

“I said, ‘Well, I always thought human rights meant justice.’ He said ‘Congratulations, minister of justice,'” Cotler related with a broad grin.
Cotler replaces Martin Cauchon who was dropped from cabinet.

“The protection and promotion of human rights, and amongst them minority rights, will be my guiding principle.”

As a backbench MP, Cotler often issued stinging indictments of the Liberals’ failure to articulate strong opposition to groups like Hezbollah later outlawed as a terrorist organization or to foreign regimes that abuse human rights.

He said at the time he regarded his political career as an “extended sabbatical from my career as an academic and human rights lawyer.”

Cotler’s credibility as a human rights expert was a trump card in the push to persuade a suspicious Canadian public of the merits of the controversial new Anti-Terrorism Act, C-36.

As a widely published law professor, now on leave from McGill, and onetime counsel to prisoners-of-conscience like Andrei Sakharov
and Nelson Mandela, Cotler’s backing gave the bill the boost it needed.Cotler argued anti-terrorism laws and broader police powers are not an attack on civil liberty, but a bulwark protection against attacks on the ultimate human right to live in a secure society, free from

terror.

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