Paul Copeland

A Toronto-based Human rights lawyer, Paul Copeland is widely known as the defence attorney of security certificate detainee Mohamed Harkat, and an avid supporter of legal aid.[1]

Copeland co-founded the Law Union of Ontario in 1974 and was the Vice-President of the Criminal Lawyers' Association from 1985 to 1991 and was for several years the co-president of the Association in Defence of the Wrongly Convicted until the fall of 2008. He has been a Bencher of the Law Society of Upper Canada since 1990.[1] Since 1988 he has been active working with the democracy movement for Burma.

In June 2006 he argued in the Supreme Court of Canada on behalf of Mohamed Harkat that the security certificate procedure under the immigration and Refugee Protection Act violated the fundamental justice provisions of Section 7 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedom. In February 2007 the Supreme Court of Canada unanimously agreed with that argument and held that the procedure violated fundamental justice.[2]

In February 2008 he was granted Top Secret National Security clearance. In June 2008 he was appointed as a special advocate for Mohamed Harkat and for Hassan Almrei in the security certificate proceedings against them. The security certificate in regard to Mr. Almrei was found to be unreasonable by Justice Mosley on December 14, 2010.[3] The Security Certificate against Mohamed Harkat was found to be reasonable in December 2010.