Ernst Zundel to Be Deported from Canada: Statement from His Lawyer

This statement concerns the pending deportation of 65 year old Ernst Zundel, who lived in Canada from 1958 to 2000, who has no criminal record in Canada and who faces no criminal charges in Canada. 

Mr. Zundel has been in solitary confinement for 2 years and  is about to be deported after a largely secret proceeding against him.  The Crown and the presiding judge met secretly throughout his case, in the absence of Mr. Zundel and his lawyers.  The Crown repeatedly presented evidence and made arguments to the judge in a Star Chamber type proceeding. 

At the public proceeding, Mr. Zundel was told literally hundreds of times, when he asked for specific evidence of the case against him, that there was “nothing in the unclassified materials” .  He was repeatedly blocked from asking questions of witnesses on the basis of “national security”.

The presiding judge made repeated serious errors, forgot submissions and repeatedly misstated the appropriate legal test about what evidence should be kept secret.  The same judge then evaluated the secret evidence. 

Mr. Zundel complained of reasonable apprehension of bias by that judge. The same judge rejected Mr. Zundel’s argument and later ordered him deported. 

The Federal Court of Appeal rejected his appeal regarding bias.  It appears that the Crown will not wait to see whether the Supreme Court of Canada will hear the further appeal Mr. Zundel has already filed on the bias issue. The Crown will deport him NOW.

The Supreme Court of Canada has been asked, in Mr. Adil Charkaoui’s case, to consider the constitutionality of the law which allows secret evidence by which Mr. Zundel is deported.  The Crown will not wait until the Supreme Court decides whether to hear that appeal.  If the law is ultimately ruled to be unconstitutional, Mr. Zundel will likely hear about it from a German jail cell.

Probably no one cares because Mr. Ernst Zundel is notorious and reviled.  The powerful and the popular do not need to rely on the fairness of our legal system.  The marginalized and the reviled do.  Our system has failed Mr. Zundel.  We should care.  But we fear most of us don’t give a damn.

Mr. Zundel will not initiate any further court proceedings in Canada.  His repeated request that Canadian courts recognize his rights to basic fairness and justice have been unanswered. He will not beg for those rights. 

Mr. Zundel has gone through the entire security certificate process, unfair though it was, to a conclusion. He has no right to appeal or to judicial review.  He has gone to every available level of court in Canada. 

For 42 years, he has vigorously defended his freedom of expression within the Canadian justice system.  All legal avenues have now been exhausted, as has his faith in the Canadian justice system and this security certificate system, which has been characterized by a Canadian journalist, after witnessing part of Mr. Zundel’s proceeding, as a “frightening charade of justice”.                 

Peter Lindsay   

Chi-Kun Shi

Counsel for Ernst Zundel