The Ontario Supreme Court has decisively rejected the first constitutional challenges to Canada’s two-year-old war crimes legislation.
Associate Chief Justice Frank Callaghan ruled against a series of motions last week arising from the trial of Imre Finta. The former restaurant-owner from Hamilton, Ontario, was a member of a Nazi-run police organization in his native Hungary during World War II.
He is charged with kidnapping and confining 8,617 Jews in cattle cars in Szeged, Hungary, in 1944, prior to their deportation to death camps.
Finta, 77, is being tried under legislation adopted by Parliament in 1987 that allows Canada to prosecute war criminals for acts committed on foreign soil.
The legislation was a direct outcome of a two-year investigation into Nazi war criminals in Canada, conducted by a government-appointed commission headed by Justice Jules Deschenes of the Quebec Superior Court.
Finta’s lawyer, Douglas Christie, claimed it violated the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and was therefore unconstitutional.
According to Christie, the law retroactively created a crime when none legally existed at the time it was committed. He contended further that Canada had no right to try a person for carrying out orders that were legal in another country.
Judge Callaghan accepted the reply of Crown Attorney Chris Amerasinghe, who demonstrated the absence of retroactive jeopardy for the accused.
He cited The Hague Convention of 1907 and the Versailles Treaty of 1919 to support his finding that by 1939, certain actions against civilian populations, even during a war, were regarded internationally as crimes against humanity.
The right of Canada to try persons for offenses committed outside its territory was upheld by Callaghan, who cited piracy as an example of nations making use of that right.
Callaghan reserved decision on two other defense motions. One cited the time lapse — 44 years — before charges were brought against Finta. The other concerned pre-trial delays.
The judge ruled those motions premature. He said they could be resubmitted after all of the evidence is heard.
Meanwhile, William Hobson, head of the Justice Department’s war crimes prosecution section, defended his unit against charges of foot-dragging.
He said calls for speedier prosecution ignore the fact that “monumental efforts” of investigation and “the cooperation of foreign governments” are required to prosecute the 20 individuals cited by the Deschenes Commission as possible war criminals.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
