Civil liberties and wartime judicial decision making: A comparative analysis of Supreme Court patterns found in Canada and the United States.

The Canadian and American Supreme Courts have both adjudicated cases concerning the rights claims of suspected terrorists. While the Canadian Supreme Court adjudicates these cases asking whether the government actions violate the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the Court, in the American tradition, does not look to its Bill of Rights for answers, but rather adjudicates such claims based on a separation of powers framework. This paper examines the judicially-created reasoning used to decide security cases in a post-911 world in Canada and the United States. I show that while the Canadian experience looks like it is more rights-based, the Court, like its American counterpart, looks at the procedure of how the law goes about limiting rights over the substance of the legitimacy of the limit in the first place. I conclude that the two courts end up using similar legal reasoning, despite the differing in approaches, resulting in each state providing a delicate balance between security and liberty. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]