Good luck serving bin Laden

Good luck serving bin Laden

Starting soon, we can send the subpoena to Osama bin Laden, 6653 Dirt Cave Rd., Third Mountain from the Left, West Pakistan.

Of all the government moves to keep lawyers employed during the recession, a judicial stimulus package allowing Canadian victims to sue global terrorists and their safe haven countries must rank as the most ludicrous.

The logistics of dragging evil-doers and their state sponsors into an overcrowded Canadian justice system -- building a case against an accused foreigner who won't file a defence, securing a compensation verdict and then collecting the monetary award -- represents a series of improbabilities that could compound into a time-wasting venture.

My fixer in Kabul hasn't e-mailed back yet, but it's a safe bet he didn't get a nervous Taliban response to the new legislation introduced into the House of Commons yesterday.

And Somalian pirates, who show little fear of Canadian military threats to drag them into courts in the region, weren't exactly rushing to deflate their hijacking zodiacs at news of their new legal vulnerability. But when a federal government is scrambling to change the channel away from its economic disaster movie, everything is fair game as a political diversion.

The scheme actually got off to a promising start earlier this week with the long-overdue move to make the sex offender registry compulsory and therefore actually functional. My only quibble is why it took this law-and-order government three years for a common sense amendment demanded by the experts. That was followed yesterday by gruff Public Safety Minister Peter Van Loan announcing Canada will follow the United States along a path of judicial futility to sue terrorists and revoke immunity for sovereign countries to help procure victim damages and moral vindication.

The government has yet to figure out exactly which organizations and terror-coddling countries could be exposed to Canadian justice. When pressed repeatedly, Mr. Van Loan could not name even one country that might be list-worthy, pleading that it's up to Cabinet to make the call.

Given that the incubator for al-Qaeda is in Pakistan and Afghanistan, one might assume they're automatic contenders. Trouble is, sensitive diplomatic relations with those governments would not be helped if our ambassadors start delivering judgments attached to hefty fines. In fact, after referring to the 40-odd names on Canadian or U. S. terrorist lists, there appear to be very few host countries Canada would want to antagonize by seeking to collect court-imposed penalties. Most of the 9/11 perpetrators, including bin Laden, came from Saudia Arabia -- a country that pays no heed when we protest Canadians confronted by possible beheadings, so it is unlikely to fork over cash to appease a Toronto judge.

Mr. Van Loan pointed to the Libya precedent, a multibillion-dollar compensation package coughed up by that country's dictator to the victims of the 1989 Lockerbie Pam-Am bombing. Trouble is, that settlement was the price for Libya's re-entry to the oil markets and preceded planned legal action. There is one obvious target in the crosshairs of this bill. New action against those alleged to have participated in the Air India bombing is encouraged by having the bill's legal status specifically backdated to 1985, the year of the disaster.

The rules of civil action are less stringent than criminal trials, which could expose at least two acquitted suspects to a different outcome, particularly in light of new evidence that's emerged since their 2007 verdict. But even if this one domestic case is successful, the price for inventing a new legal process will be dramatically higher than any settlement.

And if the money has to be collected from a foreign terrorist organization or a rogue state, the chances of securing compensation approximate the odds of finding Osama bin Laden happily enjoying the mountain view on Dirt Cave Road.