MONTREAL - A case pitting the Iranian government against the family of slain photojournalist Zahra Kazemi wrapped up Monday and is now in the hands of a Quebec judge.
A $17-million lawsuit filed by the family and the Kazemi estate has been authorized, but the Iranian government has been trying to block the suit. Iran argues it benefits from the State Immunity Act.
That long-standing federal legislation prohibits civil actions against foreign governments on Canadian soil unless they are of a commercial nature.
Quebec Superior Court Justice Robert Mongeon now must decide whether Iran and its officials should benefit from immunity from civil prosecution.
He told lawyers they should not expect a decision soon because of the wealth of documentation and the complexity of the case.
Kazemi was an Iranian-Canadian citizen who was beaten, raped and killed in 2003 after being arrested for photographing relatives of detainees outside Evin prison in Tehran.
She died of her injuries and her body was hastily buried in Iran.
She was never formally charged with any crime.
Lawyers for the Kazemi estate and her son, Stephan Hashemi, have argued the case should proceed in Canada and that it would be impossible to get a fair hearing in Iran.
"When acts of torture are being cloaked with immunity, that is simply wrong," said lawyer Kurt Johnson, a member of Kazemi's legal team.
"We're arguing on a number of grounds, but basically for a general exception in cases of torture, there shouldn't be immunity because it amounts to impunity in that case."
Hashemi has tried unsuccessfully to have his mother's body repatriated. Last week, he wrote to Prime Minister Stephen Harper criticizing the government for its approach to handling the seven-year-old case.
Ottawa has had shaky relations with Iran since Kazemi's murder and has routinely voiced its displeasure with officials in that country over the handling of the case and their lack of transparency.
The suit names as defendants Iran, Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, former Tehran prosecutor Saeed Mortazavi and prison official Mohammad Bakhshi.
Montreal lawyer James Woods defended Iran in the case.
Woods said Iran and its leader could not be sued and that immunity extends to civil servants and government employees such as Mortazavi and Bakhshi, who were acting on behalf of the state.
But organizations such as the Canadian Centre for International Justice and Amnesty International Canada also intervened in the immunity hearing through lawyers with a keen interest in seeing the civil suit go forward.
The Canadian government intervened as well and defended the constitutional legitimacy of the immunity act.
Previous attempts to sue foreign countries for crimes against humanity have failed because the act doesn't allow much leeway for determining who can be sued.
Last year in Ottawa, both the Tories and a Liberal MP introduced legislation seeking to amend the act to allow Canadians who are victims of terrorism or torture to sue foreign states.
But those bills have yet to be adopted, which Hashemi called deplorable.
"Its really cultivated the ground for similar crime to go on and on and on," he said of Ottawa's stance on suing foreign governments.
"If victims of (injustice) in Canada cannot seek some kind of redress, it's not possible to go on with our lives."
