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Singh to Suresh: Non-Citizens, The Canadian Courts and Human Rights Obligations

by Tom Clark

250 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); catalogue #06-2186; ISBN 1-4251-0429-0; US$19.09, C$21.95, EUR15.68, £10.98

Does Canadian law give effect to, 'respect' and 'ensure' rights promised non-citizens by international treaties? Are new steps necessary?

Everyone under Canada's jurisdiction is to benefit from the international human rights treaties that Canada has ratified. Courts are to protect individuals from acts of the authorities that might violate their fundamental rights. This is the promise made by ratifying the treaties. Since 1985, a gap has grown between the Canadian courts' rulings on rights matters for non-citizens and the international human right obligations as confirmed by the views of the committees that are built into the human rights treatis. This book develops a test from international human rights obligations and uses the test as a tool to analyze a sequence of Supreme Court and other cases from Singh in 1985 to Suresh in 2002 and beyond. For each Canadian case, the author draws on corresponding international human rights jurispurdence and case law. The author adds his own experience with interventions before the Court in these cases and offers some personal ideas. He concludes that additional legislative measures are needed if the gap with international human rights obligations is to be closed so that everyone in Canada might enjoy the international treaty rights promised them.

Tom Clark worked with national Canadian churches and with the Canadian Council for Refugees for eighteen years on national and international refugee and migration policies. He was the staff person responsible for the Canadian Council of Churches' interventions in several Supreme Court cases. Here he uses international human rights obligations as a tool to analyze Canadian court decisions, and offers some chanllenging conclusions.

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