Ahmed Zaoui Update: Hearing Delayed

The long-awaited hearings into Ahmed Zaoui's Security Risk Certificate, which were scheduled to start next month, have been delayed because the SIS has refused to provide information to its own "watchdog". They have also failed to provide a full summary of the allegations against Zaoui, making it impossible to mount any sort of defence. This is simply unacceptable. If this sort of foot-dragging happened in an ordinary court, then the SIS would face some harsh words from the judge, and the charges would be being thrown out for prosecutorial misconduct. But in the SIS's ad-hoc, kangaroo court, the "judge" works for them, and there are no "charges" - just an ever shifting series of allegations which will be endlessly raised, dropped, and raised again depending on the whim of the SIS. This makes a mockery of justice, and a mockery of Zaoui's right to natural justice under the BORA.

It has now been almost four years since Zaoui arrived in the country, and over a year since the Supreme Court made its final ruling on the background issues to his case - and the SIS still have not got their story straight. How much longer do they need? And how much longer is this embarrassment to our human rights record going to be allowed to drag on?

Justice sometimes takes time, but we are well past the stage of (re)establishing the basic ground rules here, and into the realm of simple foot dragging by the authorities. And where that happens, that other saying comes into effect: justice delayed is justice denied. The SIS clearly has no intention of allowing Zaoui to argue his case or rebut their "evidence", and in these circumstances, the government really only has one option: it should withdraw the Security Risk Certificate, and allow Zaoui to live here as a free man.