Canada's justice minister elaborates on shift in approach to prosecution of war crimes (09/13/98)

Canada's justice minister elaborates on shift in approach to prosecution of war crimes

by Andrij Kudla Wynnyckyj
Toronto Press Bureau

TORONTO - The Canadian government appears to have completed its shift in approach to prosecuting alleged war criminals found in this country, from a "made-in-Canada solution" to a policy of "ship the problem elsewhere."

On August 26, in an address to the annual meeting of the Canadian Bar Association (CBA) in St. John's, Newfoundland, Canadian Justice Minister and Attorney General Anne McLellan said that a bill she introduced in May, which merged the country's Extradition Act with the Fugitive Offenders Act, will "enable Canada to meet its international obligations to hand over suspected war criminals to an international tribunal such as that in the Hague, or to the new international court, which Canada played a very key role in creating."

The International Criminal Court was established this year by a special international convention, sponsored by the United Nations, held in Rome in May-June.

Following the Deschênes Commission of inquiry into the presence of war criminals in Canada in the mid-1980s, the federal government of the day passed legislation enabling it to initiate criminal proceedings in Canadian courts against people suspected of war crimes perpetrated elsewhere.

Subsequently, a series of courtroom reversals, including acquittals upheld by the Supreme Court, prompted the current Liberal government, with Allan Rock serving as justice minister, to switch in January 1995 to a policy of denaturalization and deportation in prosecuting war crimes (also among the approaches identified by Justice Jules Deschênes in his final report).

In her speech to the CBA, Ms. McLellan highlighted the recently announced five-fold increase in funding of the war crimes effort, which provides for $46.8 million (Canadian) over the next three years. The minister said these monies "will enable the Department of Justice to initiate some 14 new World War II cases" and enable cooperation between various government agencies pursuing alleged war criminals.

The attorney general then told her audience that "three priority areas" had been identified to "deal with the problem of declining confidence in our justice system," namely: "crime prevention, youth justice and concerns of victims." Ms. McLellan also identified "the timely access to justice" as an area of concern.

In addressing the third priority, concerns of victims, the justice minister said that "traditionally, in criminal justice matters, our system has supported the interests of the accused over those of the victim. The principles underpinning this approach are understandable, but in practice it has been painful for victims of crime."

However, no overt connection was made between the war crimes issue and the abovementioned priorities in Ms. McLellan's speech. In fact, she appeared to differentiate between these priorities and "other important initiatives," which included her department's approach to war crimes.

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