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 Martin
Collacott seems to have mixed issues in
his Globe and Mail piece
16 January 2008. Laibar Singh's efforts to
remain in Canada are legal -
they rely on a
legitimate part of Canada's law which
gives officials discretion to
allow any person to remain in Canada on
humanitarian ground.
The notion of sanctuary in a religious institution comes from the situation in the early Middle Ages when the church in England had some legal jurisdiction of its own. In comparison, the international human rights system has some jurisdiction of its own in the Canada of today. Canada promised international rights for everyone by human rights treaties. All but one of these, unlike our Constitution, were ratified with the consent of all provinces. But Canada's justice system fails to fully acknowledge or recognise these rights. Sanctuary can help bridge the resulting gap and help people to claim the rights which Canada promised. International human rights bodies have found in case law that it would violate treaty rights to deport persons whose life would be threatened because crucial health care needs could not be met. This resonates with the situation of Laibar Singh. Not surprisingly, the Canadians who are not ignorant of such matters consider it a duty to assist Canada in meeting its international rights obligations by preventing such a deportation. Knowing that, among other problems, there is no appeal, believing that a mistake has been made and appreciating that officials understandably do not wish to conceed a mistake, they try to bring the matter before the courts of public opinion. To try to correct the mistake, refugee serving groups use the legal means available - the application to remain on humanitarian grounds. Canada's refugee system is not hugely superior to that in other Western countries. The refugee related procedures in Canada produce results which are largely comparable with others. Most national refugee procedures end up allowing 60% to 80% of aylum seekers to remain. The big difference is that Canada is almost unique in not allowing an appeal of a negative refugee status decision. The care with which sanctuary has mostly been used is remarkable. That explains why resort to sanctuary has had the significant success rate which Collacott reports. Collicott points out that most of the sanctuary cases were found to be without merit as refugee status cases. That is not surprising. The system in Canada lacks the usual appeal of a negative refugee status decision. And the issues often go beyond simple refugee status. Thus sanctuary is evidence that Canada's wider refugee related system is flawed, as in fact Collicott concedes. However, the Canadian system is in its overall sweep no more disfunctional than most others in the world. So most countries can find room to allow a few people to stay whom some other country in the world would not consider to be refugees. Canada has recognized some who would have been turned down by the United States as Collicott claims. However, the reverse can also be true. I am aware of at least one case in which the US granted asylum to a person Canada had not recognized as a refugee. Using the only mechanisms provided in the law and using sanctuary to ensure that international human rights are carefully and openly considered by Canada should not be considered "abuse" as Collacott labels it. |
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