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Will Zuzak; DESCHENE.008 = 1988-02-17 letter to Deschenes; 1993-10-07
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Dear Subscribers:
In his reply to my original letter, after a telephone call asking him
to confirm receipt of the material, Justice Deschenes simply did not
respond to my concerns. He did not reply to my letter below:
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February 17, 1988
The Honourable Jules Deschenes
Cour Superieure du Quebec
Palais de Justice
1, Rue Notre-Dame Est
Montreal, Quebec H2Y 1B6
Dear sir:
In your response of Dec. 17, 1987 to my letter to you dated
Aug. 17, 1987, you completely ignore the three specific issues I
raised. I therefore repeat them verbatim:
(1) Have you read, or are you familiar with, Soviet Evidence in
North American Courts, by Paul Zumbakis, and Nazi War
Criminals in America, by Lydia Demjanjuk? If so, why have
they not been included in the bibliography of the Report?
(2) On page 827 of the Report, it is admitted that "In 96% of
the cases which the Commission has investigated it has not
communicated with the suspects." This decision is absolutely
unacceptable in a free, democratic society. I would strongly
urge you to inform all the people whose names have been
submitted to hostile organizations and/or governments by the
Commission and by Robert P. Kaplan.
(3) Throughout the Report, the Office of Special Investigations
is described in glowing terms. I personally view the terms
of reference of the OSI, its collaboration with the Soviet
KGB and its methods of operation as a very serious
subversion of the U.S. system of justice. It is frightening
that you appear to be either ignorant of, or indifferent to,
the miscarriages of justice being perpetrated by the OSI. I
must respectfully ask you to reverse your favourable opinion
of the OSI.
In the third paragraph of your letter, you erroneously state
that I do not give the Commission credit for Recommendation 80
advising against setting up an OSI in Canada. In my CRITIQUE
Recommendation 80 is treated both on page 6 (finding 20) and page
26 (point 4) where I state: "Although in two short paragraphs on
pages 828-829 Justice Deschenes concludes that Canada should not
set up a U.S.-style OSI, he does so for political and
sociological rather than judicial reasons." Throughout the rest
of the Report you describe the OSI in very positive terms
including the statement that the OSI standards of evidence are
"clear, unequivocal and convincing --- not leaving the issue in
doubt" when, in fact, the opposite is the reality.
Your failure to include the studies of Paul Zumbakis and
Lydia Demjanjuk in the bibliography of the Report must lead one
to conclude either that the Commission did not examine the OSI
and its operations in sufficient depth or that the Commission
made a deliberate decision to suppress views contrary to those of
the OSI from its Report.
As for the issue where you decided not to inform 96 percent
of the suspects that they had been investigated, let me quote
from page 25 of my CRITIQUE: "In a free and democratic society
one does not spend 21 months ferreting into the lives and
histories of hundreds of innocent people, publicize and
sensationalize the proceedings, and then not even inform the
potential victims that they have been the subject of a thorough
investigation based on unjustified accusations." I would suggest
that you (and/or the federal government) have a moral obligation
to protect the innocent by at least informing them that their
names have been exposed to future harassment and blackmail.
As you state in your letter, I do indeed feel that the
Commission was wrong in its choice of "a very limited time span,
geographical area and historical circumstances", and reject your
justification in accepting the narrow terms of reference implied
by the Order in Council in referring to "war crimes related to
the activities of Nazi Germany during World War II" (pages 17 and
38 of Report). As outlined on page 12 of my CRITIQUE, it is
ironic that your argument that: "It does not belong to this
Commission to pass judgement on the wisdom of this decision or on
its 'moral validity'; nor should the Commission extend its
mandate beyond the borders of its obvious meaning" is completely
analogous to the common defense at the Nurnberg Trials: "I was
only following orders."
As a judge of the Superior Court of Quebec you should have
been particularly sensitive to questions of 'moral validity' and
judicial validity. In following the blatantly discriminatory
terms of reference of Order-in-Council #1985-348 rather than
examining the issue from a universal perspective, you have
compromised the moral and judicial validity of your Report as
well as the subsequent legislation arising therefrom. The sad
truth is that the legislation incorporated in Bill C-71 is based
on your Report which examined a small subset of the more general
problem of "extraterritorial crimes committed by Canadians or
residents of Canada". The appropriate analogy would be for a
surgeon to prescribe a delicate operation on the spleen based
upon the examination of a smashed finger.
An examination of the evolution of Bill C-71 from conception
to birth is not reassuring to Canadians interested in the health
and well-being of their democratic ideals and system of
jurisprudence:
(a) As so well documented in the Deschenes Commission Report,
Order-in-Council 1985-348 was conceived in the deceit of the
"Mengele Affair" perpetrated with the connivance of the
sensation-seeking mass media.
(b) The ability of the people drafting the Order-in-Council to
limit its mandate to discriminate against a select minority of
Canadians points to some very serious shortcomings of our
political system.
(c) The failure of a Superior Court judge to reject the
blatantly discriminatory terms of reference brings into question
the independence of the judiciary from political pressure.
(d) The unnecessarily convoluted construction of Bill C-71
appears to be specifically designed to limit the applicability of
the legislation to a select clientele so as to avoid prosecution
of criminals and crimes not covered by the Deschenes Commission
Inquiry. It also implies a dangerous politicization and
bureaucratization of our judicial system.
(e) Collusion among the three federal political parties to
hurriedly pass Bill C-71 without allowing for public scrutiny and
discussion as well as appropriate parliamentary debate will
surely be recorded in history as a low point in Canadian
parliamentary democracy.
Such has been the illegitimate conception and birth of Bill
C-71. And it has already spawned a "50 man task force"
reminiscent of the OSI as well as secret negotiations between the
Canadian Department of Justice and the Soviet KGB reminiscent of
the infamous Ryan-Rudenko agreement between the OSI and the KGB.
The statement of the Honourable Ray Hnatyshyn in the House of
Commons on Feb. 3, 1988 that following the six basic precautions
set out in your Report will ensure that Canadian standards of
justice will prevail is pure wishful thinking as explained on
pages 28 to 31 of my CRITIQUE. Secondly his statement appears to
imply that such evidence gathered from witnesses in the Soviet
Union will be admissible in Canadian courts in lieu of the
witnesses appearing in person. Such a procedure cannot be
reconciled with Canadian standards of justice.
It appears that the subversion of the Canadian system of
jurisprudence is well under way.
Yours truly,
William W. Zuzak, Ph.D., P.Eng.
cc/ Ukrainian Canadian Committee
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Will Zuzak; DESCHENE.008 = 1988-02-17 letter to Deschenes; 1993-10-07
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