[JURIST] Canadian government lawyers plan to ask a judge to take the reportedly unprecedented step of approving the installation of closed-circuit video cameras in the home of Mahmoud Jaballah, one of the so-called Secret Trial Five [CBC backgrounder] subject to security certificates [PSC backgrounder] allowing for their detention without charge and possible deportation. Jaballah spent nearly eight years in jail without formally being charged with a crime for his alleged role in the 1998 US embassy bombings in East Africa. He is currently under house arrest. The Globe and Mail has more.

Last Monday, the Canadian government introduced [JURIST report] a new bill on security certificates in response to a February Supreme Court decision [text] that gave it one year to re-write existing law or have it voided as unconstitutional. The Supreme Court of Canada ruled [opinion text] in February that the government's use of security certificates violated the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms [text; CDCH materials] insofar as the procedure relied on evidence that detainees were not permitted to see and could not challenge. The new bill would give detainees access at private hearings to a UK-style special advocate empowered to review and challenge materials on their behalf.