Lawyer’s suspicions spy agency listened to client calls proven right

Lawyer’s suspicions spy agency listened to client calls proven right by Colin Perkel, Canadian Press, August 8, 2012, TheTyee.ca
“I couldn’t believe the degree to which the judicial process had been corrupted,” Galati told The Canadian Press outside Federal Court. … From March 1999 to the end of 2003, the Toronto lawyer acted for two Egyptians slapped separately with national security certificates: Mohamed Mahjoub and Mahmoud Jaballah. The government deemed the men terrorist threats, with much of its case based on secret evidence they were not allowed to see. A dozen years later, both men — in prison or under house arrest despite facing no charges in Canada — are still fighting to have their certificates quashed. … Mahjoub’s current lawyers have since gained access to information that shows the Canadian Security Intelligence Service and the Canada Border Services Agency had been intercepting communications between him and his lawyers, including Galati, from the get-go. “When you intercept a lawyer’s communications with his clients, you might as well get rid of the judiciary because then the judiciary is no longer independent,” Galati said. … “I did not know that Canadian government institutions such as CSIS and/or the CBSA would violate such a fundamental right as the right to confidential communications between a solicitor and his client,” Galati states. … Federal Court Judge Edmond Blanchard has shown increasing impatience with government tactics in recent weeks which include putting up spy agency witnesses who then refuse or are unable to answer questions. … Also Wednesday, the government lost yet another skirmish in the Mahjoub case: the Federal Court of Appeal ruled it will decide if it has jurisdiction to hear Mahjoub’s appeal of a ruling earlier this year in which a judge refused to stay the proceedings against him, opting instead to fire 11 government lawyers.