The Lawyers Weekly - May 21, 2010

THE LAWYERS WEEKLY
May 21, 2010 | 15

Mexican business visa program needs work

EVELYN
ACKAH

Suspected by Canadian authorities of links to terrorist organizations, Abdullah Almalki was held by Syrian security intelligence and tortured. No charges were ever laid against him in Canada.

JONATHAN HAYWARD / CANADIAN PRESS

Individuals wrongfully accused of terrorism receive little redress

DONALEE MOULTON

Jasminka Kalajdzic, a law professor at the University of Windsor, has battled the war on terrorism in the last few years. Her experience left her wrestling with fundamental questions on legal process, responsibility and redress for those who have been wrongfully accused of terrorism.

Kalajdzic has answered some of those questions in a paper that has now been published in the Windsor Yearbook on Access to Justice. The seeds of the journal article were sown years ago, when Abdullah Almalki was detained at the Damascus airport in 2002 en route to visiting family in Syria. Suspected by Canadian authorities of links to terrorist organizations, Almalki was held in solitary confinement in a branch of Syrian security intelligence for 18 months, where he was repeatedly interrogated and tortured.

No charges were ever laid in Canada against Almalki, who was represented by Kalajdzic. He was charged in Syria, but acquitted in 2004.

“Ultimately,” Kalajdzic said in an
interview with The Lawyers Weekly,
“I asked myself, what happens if the
national security investigators get it
wrong? What happens to collateral
damage in the war on terrorism?”
Kalajdzic, a civil litigator until
joining the University of Windsor
law faculty last year, examined three
options for redress available to
people like Almalki: filing official
complaints with agencies that over-
see CSIS and the RCMP; public
inquiries; and civil cases against the
government. None, she found, are
effective.

Against the RCMP just doesn’t have enough power. “It can’t, for example, compel documents from the RCMP.”

The Canadian government imposed a new visa requirement last year on all Mexican citizens travelling to Canada, aimed at reducing the growing number of refugee claimants originating from Mexico. As a result, all Mexicans who travel to Canada now have to apply for a Temporary Resident Visa (TRV) and satisfy a visa officer at the Canadian Embassy that they have a temporary intention, will not overstay their approved time in Canada and that they can afford to pay for their visit. In addition, they must be healthy, have no criminal record and not be considered a security risk to Canadians.

Following this decision by the Canadian government, there was a significant outcry by the Mexican government, which led to increased diplomatic tension between these two NAFTA partners. Mexico retaliated by imposing visa requirements on all Canadian diplomats in the country, and had even threatened at one point to impose visa requirements on all 1. 3 million Canadian tourists entering Mexico.

As a direct result of lobbying and diplomatic pressure by the Mexican government over the past year, Canada announced on April 9 a new visa application program for Mexican business travelers, called the Business Express Program (BEP). The BEP was established to provide enhanced services to qualified Mexican businesses and their employees, including priority processing of visa applications, less paperwork and a dedicated service team catering to the needs of the individuals within the program.