Mr. Harris, it's good to see you as well after all this time.
I just want to clarify. You opened up in terms of the question of the importance of the prisoner of war status. As I mentioned in my opening remarks, it's clear that torture is prohibited across the board, whether it's POWs, whether it's civilians in custody, whether it's under international humanitarian law, the human rights law, the Afghan constitution, or the Canadian domestic law. It is important to establish that international humanitarian law clearly bans it under any number of treaties and customary international law.
With respect to my duties as the superintendent of the military justice system, I basically carry on what were, in effect, as Chief Justice Lamer said, the common law responsibilities of an attorney general. I clearly don't do the political aspects of it; I do the day-to-day aspects with respect to that.
In that capacity I superintend an independent director of military prosecutions, which is very common in the provinces and now federally with the DPP. I also have legal advisers who serve with the Canadian Forces, and those legal advisers include a number who are in Afghanistan. Presently there are six legal officers serving in Afghanistan under a variety of functions; that has ranged from six to nine over the course of various deployments.
With respect to the investigation of offences, I do not superintend the Provost Marshal or the military police. They are an independent organization. They perform a quasi-judicial duty, as do all police in terms of their determination of investigations and decisions to lay charges. They do get legal advice in the course of doing that. In particular, the NIS would get legal advice from the director of military prosecutions. What advice they get or don't get and what they seek would be covered by solicitor and client privilege.
Certainly with respect to--