WHEN CANADA'S APPELLATE courts want to send a strong message, they do it by issuing what's known as a per curiam ruling.

Normally, those courts' decisions are written by one or two judges, and if all are agreed the other judges simply sign off as concurring.

But when the judges are not only all in agreement but want to stress that fact, the decision is written collegially and headed BY THE COURT (the Latin per curiam translated).

Such rulings are relatively rare, especially so when more than three judges have heard the appeal, and even more so when the judgment comes from the nine members of the Supreme Court of Canada.

But that's what happened last Friday when Canada's top court upheld a ruling by the Federal Court of Appeal ordering the federal government to release documents it held stemming from Canadian officials' interrogation of Omar Khadr, the Canadian detained by United States Forces since 2002 at the notorious Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba. Now 21, Mr. Khadr is currently facing a trial before a military tribunal that could lead to him becoming the first child soldier ever imprisoned for life, and his lawyers want the material in order to prepare his defence.

The 9-0 decision said Mr. Khadr is entitled to any records of the interviews, regardless of what form they are in, and that he must also be given any information that Canadian authorities have given to their U.S. counterparts as a direct consequence of conducting the interviews.

The decision was a major triumph for a growing phalanx of Khadr supporters who believe Canada has washed its hands of complicity in an abusive U.S. military process.

In its ruling, the court instructed the Ministers of Justice and Foreign Affairs, the Director of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service and the Commissioner of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police to "produce to a judge ... unredacted copies of all documents, records and other materials in their possession which might be relevant to the charges against Mr. Khadr." The judge will consider "any privilege or public interest immunity claim" raised by the Crown and "make an order for disclosure in accordance with the reasons for judgment."

Charged with murdering U.S. Army Sergeant Christopher Speer by throwing a hand grenade, Mr. Khadr is awaiting trial on charges of murder, conspiracy and other terror related offences. Canadian authorities first visited him in early 2003, when he was 16, interrogating him over three days, and returned for two more interviews.

The Khadr lawyers say they have never seen the products of those interrogations, and suspect they could be critically important in defending him.

The court pinned its decision on international agreements to which Canada is a signatory, and on the fact the U.S. Supreme Court has found the Guantanamo Bay legal processes "to violate U.S. domestic law and international human rights obligations to which Canada subscribes."

"With Khadr's present and future liberty at stake, Canada is bound by the principles of fundamental justice and is under a duty of disclosure pursuant to s. 7 of the Charter," the nine judges said. "The content of this duty is defined by the nature of Canada's participation in the process that violated its international human rights obligations.

"In the present circumstances, this duty requires Canada to disclose to Khadr records of the interviews conducted by Canadian officials with him, and information given to U.S. authorities as a direct consequence of conducting the interviews, subject to claims for privilege and public interest immunity."

Mr. Khadr's lawyers told the court last year that they had received only heavily censored documents that are of little use and might be misleading. Federal lawyers argued that the disclosure request was a thinly disguised "fishing" expedition by defence lawyers seeking sensitive information, and that complying would jeopardize sensitive relationships between Canada and its allies in the war against terrorism.

The lead government lawyer said that if Mr. Khadr wanted to obtain transcripts of his interrogation he should request it through the U.S. court system. He also argued that ordering the disclosure of evidence to Mr. Khadr would create a dangerous precedent enabling any Canadian charged abroad to make similar demands.

Born in Toronto, Mr. Khadr is the sole Western detainee still held at Guantanamo Bay, other Westerners having been sent home at the request of their governments.

Although successive Canadian governments have refused to request his return, demands that the Harper Conservatives now do so have come from civil rights groups, the Canadian Bar Association and more recently even the Liberal opposition.

As we see it, Omar Khadr is classically being required to pay for the sins of his family - sins that included sending him as a teenager to the battlefields of Afghanistan when he should have been in school here.

There would seem to be little doubt that Canadian law could be invoked to minimize any risk he might pose to the community, our Criminal Code currently allowing police to ask our courts to have him bound by a peace bond that is the equivalent of stringent bail conditions.

The Harper government's claim that it has assurances he would be treated fairly appears to be utterly unfounded. The tribunal he faces is duty-bound to admit evidence his lawyers say was obtained through torture, and his judges will be members of the armed forces of the sergeant he is accused of killing - hardly jurors of his peers.