Ontario Superior Court Justice Lynn Ratushny struck down as unconstitutional sections of the Security of Information Act (SOIA), that made it a crime, punishable by up to 14 years in prison, to communicate, receive, or retain certain “secret” information, regardless of whether the recipient knew the information to be secret, and even if national security was not imperilled. The Court’s decision is “a resounding victory for O’Neill, the Citizen, the media, and civil liberties,” according to Stuart Svonkin, who intervened for CCLA in the case.

Since the Mounties ransacked her home and office in early 2004, Ms. O’Neill has not known whether she would be charged with a crime for publishing material about the Maher Arar case. The RCMP reportedly believed that what she published was unlawfully leaked to her. Under SOIA, it was a crime to disclose material in such circumstances even if the recipient acquired it innocently.

In striking down parts of SOIA, the Court stated that the law “fails to define in any way the scope of what it protects and then, using the most extreme form of government control, criminalizes the conduct of those who communicate and receive government information that falls within its unlimited scope …”

In early November, the Government of Canada announced it would not be appealing the decision. Alexi Wood, CCLA’s Public Safety Project Director, said that the Court’s decision “was a victory for civil liberties principles” and that it sent a message to Government. “National security cannot be used as a reason to pass excessive laws,” she said.