Ottawa, Canada - An Ontario judge struck down a section of Canada's Anti-Terrorism Act on Tuesday, saying it violated guarantees of freedom of religion and thought in the country's Charter of Rights.
Ontario Superior Court Judge Douglas Rutherford made the decision in the case of a Canadian man who is charged with conspiring to carry out bomb attacks in Britain.
The judge agreed with a defence lawyer's request to strike down part of the definition of terrorist activity in the legislation, but some legal experts said the net effect would now make it easier to prosecute terrorist suspects.
Justice Rutherford said the clause in the law that limits the definition of terrorist activity to acts motivated by religion, politics or ideology was unconstitutional. He severed that clause from the rest of the act, which he left in place.
His ruling came in response to a constitutional challenge by Momin Khawaja, a Muslim, who was the first person charged under the Anti-Terrorism Act, which became law in 2001 following the September 11 attacks on the United States.
Khawaja's lawyer, Lawrence Greenspon, said the ruling goes to the heart of the legislation. "It neuters the act," he told reporters outside the courthouse.
But Liberal Member of Parliament Irwin Cotler, a human rights expert and former justice minister, said the inclusion of the motivation clauses had actually made it tougher to prove terrorist activity.
"It's ironic that it's defence counsel that is moving to impugn that provision when in fact the prosecution may find that it will facilitate prosecutions without that provision," he said.
One of the reasons the legislation had included the section on political, religious or ideological motivation was so that people with other motivation, for example labour union demonstrators, would not be labelled terrorists.
Rutherford said the effect, however, was to unfairly focus investigation on political, religious and ideological beliefs.