Yavar Hameed
Telephone: (613) 232-2688 ext. 228
Email: yhameed@hf-law.ca
Practice Areas:
Civil Litigation
Human Rights
Immigration and Refugee Law
Employment Law
Administrative Law
Education:
1994 University of Alberta, B.A. Hon.
1999 University of Ottawa, LL.B.
2001 Law Society of Upper Canada, Ontario
2001 Masters of Arts, Carleton University
Professional Organizations:
Sessional Lecturer, Carleton University
Association des juristes d’expression française de l’Ontario
La ligue des droits et libertés
Law Union of Ontario
County of Carleton Law Association
Canadian Association of Law Teachers
Yavar Hameed was called to the Ontario Bar in 2001 having completed his Common Law degree at the University of Ottawa in 1999 and a Masters of International Affairs at Carleton University in 2001. Yavar’s practice focuses on the protection and advocacy of human rights and civil liberties in a diverse range of legal areas including general civil litigation, administrative law, criminal law (in the context of civil protests and freedom of expression matters) and Charter litigation.
Yavar has experience litigating cases before the Ontario Superior Court of Justice, Ontario Divisional Court, Ontario Court of Appeal, Federal Court and the Federal Court of Appeal. He also has significant experience in the area of administrative tribunal work having litigated before the Canadian and Ontario Human Rights Tribunals, Canada Transportation Agency, Workplace Safety Insurance Appeals Tribunal, Public Service Staffing Tribunal, Public Service Labour Relations Board and other bodies involving academic appeals and professional discipline. He practices in both English and French and is functionally proficient in Hindi, Urdu and Spanish.
Since 2001, Yavar has been actively involved in advising clients in the context of CSIS investigations and national security matters as a proponent of civil rights in the face of a hardening “security state”. He has provided legal advice to the Support Committee for Mohamed Harkat and has worked with the campaign against the immigration security certificate for several years and has acted twice as Ottawa agent for Adil Charkaoui before the Supreme Court of Canada. He has also represented Abousfian Abdelrazik, a Canadian citizen who was arbitrarily detained in Sudan for two years without charge and was blocked from returning to his family in Canada for six years before his repatriation was ordered by the Federal Court of Canada, finding that CSIS was complicit in his detention.
He provides assistance and advice to several grass roots and civil society organizations including Democracy Watch, Project Fly Home, Noone is Illegal, Philippine Migrants Society of Canada, Students Against Israeli Apartheid, Books to Prisoners and the Panhandler’s Union of Ottawa, a local of the Industrial Workers of the World. He teaches courses at Carleton University, along with his colleague Kourosh Farrokhzad, on National Security and drug policy.
Yavar is interested in the connection between popular social movements, legal action and critically responding to the state construction of social problems