When the Federal Court of Appeal ruled that the Harper government had to repatriate Omar Khadr, one of the three deciding judges wrote a dissenting opinion -- that Canada was not responsible for Khadr’s treatment in Guantanamo Bay.
Justice Marc Nadon, born in Saint-Jérôme, Que., wrote he had “serious doubts” about a colleague’s assertion “that Canada was bound ‘to take all appropriate measures to promote Mr. Khadr’s physical, psychological and social recovery.’
“With respect, the Judge again appears to have forgotten that Mr. Khadr was and is detained at Guantánamo Bay by the U.S. military,” Nadon wrote.
In his conclusion, he argued that any mistreatment suffered by Khadr in Guantanamo Bay – specifically, sleep deprivation -- would not have violated his Charter right to be safe from cruel and unusual punishment.
“The mistreatment suffered by Mr. Khadr in Guantánamo Bay was imposed by U.S. officials, not by Canadian agents, and section 12 of the Charter is not applicable to charges or punishments under foreign law,” he wrote.
The full ruling can be read here.
Nadon, 64, was educated at Lionel Groulx College and Universite de Sherbrooke and was first called to the Bar of Quebec in 1974.
He later worked as a lawyer and lectured in Maritime Law, before being appointed as a federal judge in 1993. He joined the federal court of appeal in 2001.
In another noteworthy case, Nadon declined to hear the Green Party’s case to allow Elizabeth May to participate in the televised leaders’ debate during the 2011 federal election.
At the time, the Broadcast Consortium had decided that May did not qualify to be included in the debate.
In another widely publicized ruling, Nadon denied a B.C. mother full maternity benefits.
In his 2007 ruling, Nadon wrote: “Exact parity between biological and adoptive mothers would result, in my view, in discrimination against biological mothers.”
In a 2003 case, Nadon rejected a lower-court ruling that would have granted a group of status Indians tax-exempt status off-reserves.
