Passion and dispassion.

• Author: Mitchell, Teresa
• Position: Today's trial - Mugesera v. Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration

Leon Mugesera made a speech at a political meeting in his native Rwanda in 1992. In his speech, he exhorted the Hutu people to defend themselves and allegedly made a reference to throwing the bodies of the country's Tutsi minority in the river. Shortly after his speech, he and his family fled the country, first to Spain, and then to Canada, where they obtained permanent residency in 1993. In 1995, in a civil war that wracked the country and shocked the world, hundreds of thousands of Tutsis were slaughtered and their bodies thrown in the river. Canadian immigration officials alleged that his speech incited hatred, murder, and genocide against the Tutsi minority, and sought to have Mr. Mugesera and his family deported. A long and complicated legal battle ensued that ended up before the Federal Court of Appeal in the spring of this year.

One of the first tasks of the Court was to assess Mr. Mugesera's credibility. The judges expressed some misgivings about his evidence after he fled the country, citing inconsistencies and hesitations. But the Court was convinced of Mr. Mugesera's good faith and sincerity when he described the events leading up to his speech. Justice Decary wrote "Mr. Mugesera's actions as an individual, teacher, government employee, and later, politician are consistent and coherent and supported by the evidence in the record. He has his ideas about the political evolution of his country, the causes and the persons responsible for what in the eyes of the international community would become genocide, the nature of the war raging in Rwanda (a war of aggression and invasion, rather than a civil war) and the identity of the people who in his opinion were invading his country and had to be expelled. These are ideas which he was entitled to have and to express, subject of course to the way in which he was proposing to put them into effect. Essentially, it is this latter point which is the real issue ... "

The Court then decided that the text of the speech that Mr. Mugesera gave in Rwanda was altered when it was considered by an international inquiry. Mr. Justice Letourneau wrote in supporting reasons, "I cannot but express my bewilderment not only at the ease with which Mr. Mugesera's speech was altered for partisan reasons by the International Commission of Inquiry, but especially at the ease and confidence with which the alterations of the text were subsequently accepted ... " The Court decided on what they believed to be an...