Ottawa close to serving plane-crash lawsuits on Iran
Iranian air-defence missiles brought down Flight PS752 on Jan. 8
Two class-action lawsuits with starkly different approaches to winning compensation for January’s Iran plane crash seem likely to advance in competition with each other, as court heard Wednesday that a key legal hurdle for both was close to being cleared.
One suit alleges Iran was simply negligent in firing two missiles at the Ukraine International Airlines flight, the other that the shoot-down was an act of terrorism.
A federal lawyer revealed that Ottawa hopes to serve Iranian officials with the rival claims by the end of September, after months of delay in carrying out the task.
Neither action can proceed until the court receives a “certificate of service” from the federal government showing it has given the documents to Iranian officials, as it’s legally required to do.
Global Affairs Canada has been silent until now about what actions, if any, it had taken on that front.
But Justice Department lawyer Jacqueline Dais-Visca provided an update to a brief court hearing Wednesday, saying the pandemic and the lack of diplomatic ties with Tehran have created roadblocks.
“Canada’s efforts are being coordinated with other (gobetween) countries,” she said on the teleconference call. “As you can imagine, that has been complicated by the circumstances related to COVID-19, which has disrupted channels of communication and strained diplomatic and consular resources in Canada and abroad.”
The plan to serve the documents on Iran by the end of September is “a very positive development against that backdrop,” she said.
Two Iranian air-defence missiles brought down Ukraine International Airlines flight PS752 on Jan. 8, killing 176 people in what was a largely Canadian tragedy. All but 38 of the passengers and crew were on their way here, including 55 citizens, 30 permanent residents and numerous students from Iran.
Countries who had citizens on board the doomed plane have formed a group to press Tehran for compensation for victims’ families.
The two class action suits are for now proceeding independently of that effort, with no indication they will join forces with each other.
One, headed by lawyer Mark Arnold, is based on the widely held view that foreign nations are immune from civil suits in Canada alleging negligence. Instead, it cites the Justice for Victims of Terrorism Act, which lists Iran as a state sponsor of terror.
The plane was either shot down as a deliberate act of terrorism, or Iran acted in a reckless, wanton and high-handed manner that amounted to a terrorist act, the suit argues.