Читать книгу The Snakeheads - Mary Moylum - Страница 7

When counsel was inept, when the witnesses were lying or had destroyed crucial evidence, when the asylum seeker had extreme criminality attached to his name and file, Grace Wang-Weinstein still did her best to keep the displeasure from her voice, and allowed no impatience or anger to show in her face. She did her damnedest to treat everyone who appeared in her hearing room with fairness and dignity. But the deck was pretty much stacked against petitioners who tried to cheat their way past her. It had not always been easy, but over the years Grace had learned how to assume the mask of judicial calm, and to cloak her feelings in the language of due process, procedural rules, and penal proportionality.

This morning’s case, unpoetically titled B45690, promised to be a severe test of her acting ability. The police had barricaded the street below on either side. Only officially sanctioned vehicles could park in the metered spots. A squad of RCMP officers maintained crowd control in front of the building, while inside a retired Russian civil servant, his face twitching in the bright light of the hearing room, sat nervously in a witness chair, waiting to testify.

After taking the oath to tell the truth, he tried to explain how when he arrived in Canada he had a savings account stuffed with twenty-one million dollars. Grace listened patiently to his attempts to be ingratiating as he described his wonderful good luck in his financial ventures in wonderful, welcoming Canada. Maybe if she was younger she’d be gullible enough to believe that being a Russian bureaucrat was a lucrative proposition. Here was a refugee claimant with no visible means of support, and yet within a year his $21 million had grown to $90 million. His counsel made his arguments in a bullying tone, perhaps hoping to impress this female judge, who was probably a financial ignoramus, with his assertion that the money came from market gains on technology stocks. But the wiretap evidence was irrefutable. Months of eavesdropping by RCMP agents had established that in Russia he had had ties to the KGB, and that he now had even closer ties to a biker gang, with whom he had been setting up a merchant bank on a Native reserve for the purpose of laundering drug money.

Scattered on the table before her were fat accordion folders bulging with loose-leaf documents — immigration officers’ observations and notes, pleadings, news clippings, and FBI wiretap evidence. You would think, Grace silently complained, keeping her irritation to herself, that it was a black-and-white case for deportation. Add four lawyers and you had anything but. Money could buy you a lot of things, including in this case two pre-hearing conferences and two six-month delays while the claimant consolidated his financial gains in the country of his choice. His legal advisers were past masters at the art of stalling. By the time the case was wrapped up, it could be five years. Grace knew damn well that if she rendered a negative decision this morning, the high-priced lawyers would immediately file for leave to appeal her judgment at the federal court. With a current backlog of two years and counting, Vladimir Vladimirovich would be back in business without a care in the world.

Sometimes Grace’s friends would ask her what it felt like to sit in judgement of others seven hours a day, five days a week, to hold other people’s future in her hands. When she was first appointed a judge on the Immigration and Refugee Commission, she had been excited to think that she could be the one who gave desperate people the chance to make a new life, granting them asylum and citizenship in one of the most prosperous countries in the world. She would be the one who deported false refugee claimants back to the place they came from. The stars in her eyes were long gone, but she still honestly tried to give every asylum seeker a good kick at the can.

And when she was asked what it felt like, holding the lives of others in the palm of her hand, the answer depended on who was asking. To the public and press, her response was, “My determination is based upon my findings of fact and the relevant legal issues.” To friends and family, she was more likely to confess that it scared the hell out of her. Every day, she was in the hot seat. She never knew which case would land her on the front page of the morning paper. And the worst of it was that a wrong decision could send a failed asylum seeker home to face uncertainty, poverty, or even death.

Right now, an hour into the proceedings, the hands of the clock seemed to have stopped. Counsel for the claimant and counsel for the government were engaged in a point-counterpoint match over the admissibility of documents to be entered as exhibit items.

The clerk’s monotonous voice read into the microphone: “The arresting immigration officer was Nick Slovak. However, the minister’s representative is not present. In his place representing the Immigration Department is Rocco Corvinelli.”

Nick’s name went through her like an electric shock, but her impassive expression did not change. She had not disclosed that she knew Nick. In her opinion, that private fact had no bearing on the case, and the last thing she wanted was more excuses for delay in the Vladimirovich case. She endured another hour or so of posturing by the lawyers, which was really only done for the benefit of the claimant — who was paying for the show — to demonstrate that his counsels’ billable hours were the real thing. The unspoken fact was that it made little difference if duplicate or similarly situated evidence was entered as exhibits. All parties had read the documents, and the damage was done.

The fifth package of documents was from Nick’s office. His signature was on practically every piece of paper in the stack. That meant that the claimant’s removal from the country was something that was being taken very seriously by his department, the Enforcement and Investigation Unit of Immigration and Citizenship. The message was that she should give those exhibit items of evidence a full measure of consideration. Nick really didn’t have to emphasize the point so heavily, Grace thought. Cases involving gangsters who thought Canada was a nice, safe place to launder dirty money were not something she took lightly. But that was Nick.

“I’ve got a dozen affidavits, all attesting to my client’s sterling business reputation and his high moral character, that I’d like to enter as evidence,” announced one of the opposing counsel.

She flashed a look of impatience at the young lawyer. “More duplication of evidence we don’t need, counsel. I suggest we enter only those affidavits that will allow for cross-examination of the witnesses.”

A few strands of hair fell across her face. Removing an elastic from a package of documents, she used it to tie her hair back in a ponytail. She rarely thought about her looks these days. It took too much energy and time to look good. As it was, she didn’t have enough time to do all the things she wanted to do in a day. Nor did she have the inclination to spend hours at the makeup counter or beauty salon.

“But, your honour,” the older of the lawyers intervened, smoothly, “these affidavits are from businessmen who live all across the country. They can’t afford to take time to fly in and support my client’s asylum claim, but their statements are very significant to this case.”

As Grace looked down on him from the bench she could feel her lip cynically curling up at one corner. Over the years she had grown to dislike lawyers who earned their living by representing the criminal elements of society.

“Mr. Dalton, the Immigration and Refugee Commission is mindful of the time schedules of witnesses. That’s why we have video conferencing. The video conference calls will be set for next Wednesday.” Turning to the refugee claims officer, she asked, “Any objections, Caldwell?”

“None,” said the RCO, who was obviously pleased at the discomfiture of the claimant’s lawyer, and was trying unsuccessfully to suppress a smirk tugging at the corners of his mouth.

And so for the rest of the morning she continued to allow four grown men to bicker in a kind of intellectual ritual. Corvinelli was there as the immigration department’s police officer and witness. The RCO meant to be impartial but it was important that he uphold his place and retain the respect of his legal peer on the other side. Dalton and the other opposing counsel were vested with defending a man’s right to remain in the country. When a case went south, the claimant would be deported and denied the right to return to Canada. In many cases that meant breaking up a family. His wife and children would have the choice of remaining in Canada or going with him into exile in whatever country would accept them.

Every day, Grace sat on the bench and listened to the terrible stories of the persecuted, and the elaborate lies of the ambitious. Secretly, she rooted for the genuine asylum seekers, hoping their lawyers would not be too incompetent, and delighted whenever their right to stay in the country could be proved. Every day, she was torn between emotions and intellect. On bad days she separated fathers from their children. Other days, she was merely interpreting and enforcing the law. So much depended on the merits of each case; when claimants were charged with crimes in Canada and abroad, she knew, though she tried to be fair, that their fate depended on how hard-hearted she was feeling on that particular day. Sometimes the press lambasted her for cruel, inhumane decisions. At other times she received death threats for her left-leaning sympathies and being too soft on crime.

Grace had long given up trying to please everyone.