Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms is admired across the world. It has surpassed its American constitutional counterpart in influence and international stature.
U.S. Supreme Court Judge, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, observed on Egyptian television last week that ''I would not look to the United States Constitution if I were drafting a constitution in the year 2012.'' The Canadian Charter of Rights was cited as a constitutional model to emulate.
The New York Times covered Judge Bader Ginsburg's controversial statement. The paper referred to an article written by Aharon Barak while he served as
president of the Supreme Court of Israel. Barak had recognized Canada as a new constitutional superpower with Canadian law representing ''a source of inspiration for many countries around the world.''
This tribute to Canada's Charter of Rights is a fitting backdrop to the news of the past week that Public Safety Minister Vic Toews in 2010 prepared a directive to CSIS, Canada's spy and intelligence service, to use information that may have been obtained through torture when public safety was at risk.
The sudden reversal of government policy to not knowingly rely upon information which was derived from the use of torture was immediately decried by government critics as demonstrating contempt for the Charter of Rights and moving Canada into the business of torture.
It is prudent advice for the government of Canada to consider the following insightful passage from a recent House of Lords decision: ''The use of torture is dishonourable. It corrupts and degrades the state which uses it and the legal system which accepts it.''
The use of torture is acknowledged to produce information which is inherently unreliable. Significantly, its practice diminishes us as a nation and leads the country down a path antithetical to its constitutional values of a free and democratic society. Its use can never be supported in any form.
