After four days of hearings, a federal court judge must determine whether Ottawa has violated the rights of dozens of Canadians detained in northeastern Syria.
More than 40 Canadians have been held in camps and prisons run by Kurdish authorities since the fall of Islamic State in 2019, according to CTV News.
The majority of the remaining detainees are women and children.
The hearings began in December.
The petitioners’ lawyers argued that the German government’s reluctance to return the detainees meant depriving them of their charter rights to “life, liberty and security of person”.
Federal government attorneys have previously argued that there is no obligation under domestic or international law to provide consular services, including repatriation, to a country where there is no diplomatic presence and that repatriating Canadians to a dangerous region poses a security risk would represent government officials.
However, countries such as Iraq, Germany, the Netherlands and France have managed to repatriate hundreds of detainees.
Ottawa lawyers also say the return of people they suspect have ties to Islamic State could pose a national security threat.
According to Human Rights Watch’s latest report, the living conditions of more than 42,000 foreigners in detention camps, mostly children, have been deteriorating rapidly since December. Hundreds of detainees were killed in the violence instigated by Islamic State extremists and died from a lack of medicine.
No obligation
Attorney Barbara Jackman, who is representing Jack Letts, who is being held in Syria, regrets the federal government’s stance.
“The government just doesn’t want a commitment to do anything,” Jackman said.
She believes Canadian detainees should be charged again if there is evidence they have committed crimes, rather than being “detained indefinitely” in Syria.