Background
Imre Finta was a commander of the Gendarmerie in Szeged, Hungary, during World War II. After the war, he immigrated to Canada and became a citizen in 1956. Evidence was discovered which suggested he may have participated in the deportation of Jews from Hungary during the war. In 1988, he was charged with unlawful confinement, robbery, kidnapping and manslaughter under the war crimes provisions in the Criminal Code.
Imre Finta was the first person prosecuted under Canada's war crimes legislation. He was charged in 1987 and acquitted in 1990.
A gendarmerie or gendarmery is a military component with jurisdiction in civil law enforcement. The term gendarme is derived from the medieval French expression gens d'armes, which translates to "armed people". In France and some Francophone nations, the gendarmerie is a branch of the armed forces responsible for internal security in parts of the territory with additional duties as a military police for the armed forces. This concept was introduced to several other Western European countries during the Napoleonic conquests. In the mid twentieth century, a number of former French mandates or colonial possessions such as Lebanon, Syria, and the Republic of the Congo adopted a gendarmerie after independence.
Szeged is the third largest city of Hungary, the largest city and regional centre of the Southern Great Plain and the county seat of Csongrád county. The University of Szeged is one of the most distinguished universities in Hungary.
During the pre-trial, Finta's lawyers, Doug Christie and Barbara Kulaszka, challenged the constitutionality of the criminal charges as a violation of section 11(b) of the Charter. The judge rejected this claim. However, at trial, the jury acquitted him on all counts. On the appeal by the Crown, the trial judgment was upheld including the dismissal of the Charter claim.
Douglas Hewson "Doug" Christie, Jr. was a Canadian lawyer and political activist based in Victoria, British Columbia, who was known nationally for his defence of clients such as Holocaust denier Ernst Zündel, former Nazi prison guard Michael Seifert and right-wing extremist Paul Fromm among others.
Barbara Kulaszka was a Canadian lawyer who practised law in Brighton, Ontario, known for her work with far right causes, defending alleged Nazi war criminals and Holocaust deniers, and free speech cases.
The Crown appealed the decision to the Supreme Court which upheld the decision in 1994.
In the earlier decision of R v Finta, [1993] 1 SCR 1138 the Supreme Court granted standing to intervene to the Human Rights League of B'nai B'rith Canada, the Canadian Jewish Congress and InterAmicus.
In law, standing or locus standi is the term for the ability of a party to demonstrate to the court sufficient connection to and harm from the law or action challenged to support that party's participation in the case. Standing exists from one of three causes:
- The party is directly subject to an adverse effect by the statute or action in question, and the harm suffered will continue unless the court grants relief in the form of damages or a finding that the law either does not apply to the party or that the law is void or can be nullified. This is called the "something to lose" doctrine, in which the party has standing because they will be directly harmed by the conditions for which they are asking the court for relief.
- The party is not directly harmed by the conditions by which they are petitioning the court for relief but asks for it because the harm involved has some reasonable relation to their situation, and the continued existence of the harm may affect others who might not be able to ask a court for relief. In the United States, this is the grounds for asking for a law to be struck down as violating the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, because while the plaintiff might not be directly affected, the law might so adversely affect others that one might never know what was not done or created by those who fear they would become subject to the law – the so-called "chilling effects" doctrine.
- The party is granted automatic standing by act of law. Under some environmental laws in the United States, a party may sue someone causing pollution to certain waterways without a federal permit, even if the party suing is not harmed by the pollution being generated. The law allows them to receive attorney's fees if they substantially prevail in the action. In some U.S. states, a person who believes a book, film or other work of art is obscene may sue in their own name to have the work banned directly without having to ask a District Attorney to do so.
In law, intervention is a procedure to allow a nonparty, called intervenor to join ongoing litigation, either as a matter of right or at the discretion of the court, without the permission of the original litigants. The basic rationale for intervention is that a judgment in a particular case may affect the rights of nonparties, who ideally should have the right to be heard.
The Canadian Jewish Congress was, for more than ninety years, the main advocacy group for the Jewish community in Canada. Regarded by many as the "Parliament of Canadian Jewry," the Congress was at the forefront of the struggle for human rights, equality, immigration reform and civil rights in Canada.
Opinion of the Court
The majority, written by Cory J, found that the delay did not engage section 11(b) of the Charter as the period of "unreasonable delay" begins at the time the charge is laid. A delay of 45 years, in fact, favours the accused as the memory of witnesses will be limited. Reasonableness depends, in part, on the amount of investigative work that it involved. Here, where investigation will easily stretch into years, a length of time amounting to 45 years is not beyond reason.
Cory also found that the provisions did not violate section seven of the Charter as the delay was not contrary to any principles of fundamental justice. Nor was there a violation of sections 11(a), 11(d), 11(g), 12 or 15.
Section 11(g) was particularly notable as it allowed Canadian courts to apply Canadian criminal law for acts that occurred outside of the country, but only where the acts were considered war crimes.
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