URGING NATION to ‘protect’
court ........................................1
TORONTO IS trailing in pro bono
work .........................................1
CRUSADING FOR client’s
freedom ...................................2
SUIT WITH racial tones to
mediation ................................. 4
OpiNiON
JEFFREY MILLER.................... 5
FOcuS
Wills, Estates, Charities & Trusts
THE PERILOUS presumption of
undue influence........................ 9
GUARDING AGAINST ’ineligible
individuals’ ............................ 10
TURF TUSSLE erupts in charity
over fiduciary duty ................. 10
PROBATE PLANNING with bare
trusts .................................... 12
Procurement
LINGERING DOUBT for
aggrieved ............................. 15
BOLD VISION needed for new
bridge .................................... 16
BuSiNESS & carEErS
ARE GRADS prepared to
confront real world? ............... 21
‘INFORMATION IS power’
when seeing a raise............... 23
DEPARTMENTS
Announcements. . . . . . . . . 23
Careers ............... 25
Classified Ads . . . . . . . . . . 19
Lawddities............. 13
Names in the News. . . . . . . 5
Weekly Digest.......... 17
Correction
Chris Bennett is an intellectual property and technology
lawyer at Davis LLP and Jim
Bunting is a partner at Davies
Ward Phillips & Vineberg LLP.
Incorrect firm identification
appeared in the November 4
issue of The Lawyers Weekly.
Having successfully championed the causes of such famous
political prisoners as South Africa’s
Nelson Mandela, and Andrei
Sakharov and Anatoly Sharansky
of the former Soviet Union, Liberal
MP Irwin Cotler is hoping to have
the same good fortune in securing
the release of the first political prisoner in post-Mubarak Egypt.
Maikel Nabil, a 26-year-old
Egyptian blogger and one of the
early leaders in the Tahrir Square
revolution spring last February,
was convicted in March by a mil-
itary tribunal and sentenced to
three years in prison for “insult-
ing the military” and “spreading
false news.”
In March, Nabil posted on his
blog ( www.maikelnabil.com) that
“the people and the army were
never of one hand” as he had hoped
they would be when the Arab
Spring held promise of uniting
them both in the struggle for dem-
ocracy, freedom and human rights
following the overthrow of long-
time president Hosni Mubarak.
“He began to see that the army,
rather than being under civil control, had become itself an instrument of repression and that the
military tribunal, instead of being
abolished for civilian offences,
now became the court for trying
those offences,” Cotler, the Liberal justice and human rights
critic, said in an interview.
Nabil’s brother, Mark, asked
Cotler to serve as international
legal counsel for the detained
online activist, who has been on a
hunger strike since August 23.
“As his brother said to me
recently, Maikel’s life is hanging by
a thread,” explained Cotler, who
represented Saad Eddin Ibrahim,
one of Egypt’s leading human
rights and democracy activists during the Mubarak era. He was
imprisoned, in part, for allegedly
defaming Egypt’s image abroad.
Cotler, a former federal justice minister, drew up a legal brief on
Ibrahim’s behalf that helped secure
his release from prison in 2003.
Cotler said that Nabil is one of
nearly 12,000 people who have
been tried by Egypt’s Supreme
Council of the Armed Forces this
year, more than in the 30 years
RICHES, MCKENZIE & HERBERT LLP
PATENTS, TRADE MARKS, COPYRIGHT, LITIGATION
BARRISTERS & SOLICITORS - PATENT & TRADE MARK AGENTS
PAUL HERBERT, B.SC., PHM., R.PH, LL.B., J.D., PH.D.
DAN HITCHCOCK, B.ENG. (ELEC. ENG.), LL.B.
JEFF PERVANAS, B.A.SC. (ENG. SCI.), LL.B.
BOBBY ATH WAL, B.A.SC. (MECH. ENG.), M.A.SC., LL.B., J.D.
BYRON THOM, B.A.SC. (ENG. SCI.), LL.B.
BRANT LATHAM, B.A.SC. B.SC. (CHEM. ENG.), LL.B.
GARY M. TRAVIS, B.SC. (GEOL.), LL.B.
MICHAEL ADAMS, B.ENG. (MECH. ENG.), B.SC., LL.B.
MICHAEL YUN, B.SC. (BIOCHEM), J.D.
TRADE MARK AGENT MARTA TANDORI CHENG
2 BLOOR ST. EAST, SUITE 1800
TORONTO, ONTARIO M4W 3J5
ESTABLISHED 1887
TELEPHONE: (416) 961-5000
FAX: (416) 961-5081
E-MAIL: riches@patents-toronto.com
DAN BALITY / THE CANADIAN PRESS
Irwin Cotler, seen above in Jerusalem in 2009, is campaigning for the release of Egyptian prisoner Maikel Nabil, 26.
I’m hoping the Egyptian military, apart from the
injustice of Maikel’s situation, will see that it’s not
in their self-interest to keep him detained since
they will be maimed and shamed internationally.
“
Liberal MP Irwin Cotler
that Mubarak held power.
Representing Nabil through a
power of attorney, Cotler has
been promoting his case in Can-
ada and abroad.
As vice-chairmen of the House
of Commons subcommittee on
international human rights, he
and NDP MP Wayne Marston
obtained unanimous consent on a
motion calling on Ottawa to push
for Nabil’s release and the dropping of all charges against him.
Cotler has also petitioned the
United Nations’ Working Group
on Arbitrary Detention on behalf
of Nabil, who was declared a “
prisoner of conscience” by Amnesty
International in late August.
Cotler has created an international interparliamentary
group to advocate on Nabil’s
behalf. As well, the Parliamentary Forum of the Community of
Democracies, for which Cotler
serves as vice-chairman, along
with the Canadian Egyptian
Organization for Human Rights,
have made the case a priority.
Recently, Cotler met with
Egypt’s ambassador to Canada,
Wael Ahmed Kamal Aboul Magd,
and told him that Nabil, a Coptic
Christian, should be released “in
the interests of justice and
humanity” from prison.
“I told the Egyptian ambassador
that it’s in their interest to demon-
strate that what the voices in Tahrir
Square were hoping for in their
struggle for freedom and democ-
racy will be realized through civil-
ian control over the military, an
independent judiciary and the pre-
sumption of innocence,” said Cotler,
who added that 93 per cent of the
cases that have come before Egypt’s
military tribunal have resulted in
guilty verdicts and imprisonment.
