Irruptions of Motive in the War on Terror

Abstract

In R. v. Khawaja, Rutherford J. severed the motive requirement from the definition of terrorism contained in s. 83.01 of the Criminal Code. In doing so, he drew upon the traditional doctrine that motive is irrelevant to criminal liability. This paper disputes the idea that motive is irrelevant. It makes the modest argument that the criminal law has long passed political judgements on the value or disvalue of particular motives, and that if political factors creep into the definition of terrorism, it does so in the criminal law generally.

Keywords: motive, intent, criminal law, terrorism