Introduction The topics of criminal prosecution for terrorist activities and the application of appropriate measures to detect and punish extremists are the pressing issues of modern policies that guarantee countries’ national security. As an object of analysis, the article “An Ounce of Cure for a Pound of Preventive Detention: Security Certificates and the Charter” by Jonathan Shapiro and published in 2008 will be considered. 1 At the time of writing, the author was an outstanding academic and had significant recognition in the scientific community due to activities in the field of jurisprudence and criminal law. To appreciate the importance of the theme raised by Shapiro, the article in question will be analyzed by its content and key issues concerning legislative nuances about counter-terrorism and its identification. National security topics in the context of immigration will be discussed, and the possible impact of refugees on anti-extremism policies in Canada will be studied. As an additional justification, relevant legislative acts will be engaged, and corresponding provisions will be analyzed based on the given problem. Some issues of the criminal prosecution of extremist activities against immigrants are controversial, and the analysis of this problem may help identify real and reasonable grounds for legislative interference. The Author’s Research Project One of the key issues addressed in the article is obtaining certificates of safety for refugees in Canada and, as a result, the legality of the legislative authorities’ actions about arresting suspected terrorists. Separate documents analyzed in the work are reviewed and evaluated in terms of relevance for these topics. The violation of legal civil rights is one of the theses, and Shapiro argues that serious reasons are needed to keep a person in custody under an accusation that does not have a sufficiently objective substantiated basis. 2 As evidence used for this work, excerpts from state acts and regulations are given. In addition, Shapiro mentions some criminal cases and analyzes the outcomes of specific court hearings. 3 For a comprehensive assessment, cases from various courts are dealt with, including both local hearings and debates in the Supreme Court of Canada. The structure of the article is divided into paragraphs, and a phased analysis of the Charter that regulates the rights and obligations of refugees is carried out by reviewing individual provisions. As specific topics, such nuances are considered as the key standards of the Charter, its specific excerpts regarding the interaction and criminal prosecution of refugees, as well as the standards of evidence. Summary and Analysis of the Article As a key thesis of the article, Shapiro argues that existing legislation is biased against immigrants residing in Canada, which translates into the illegal preventive detention of the suspected of extremist activities. 4 The theories of human rights and, in particular, the presumption of innocence are the basic concepts to which the author resorts in his arguments. The essence of the allegations is that if there is no appropriate evidence base in support of the accusation of a certain person for committing criminal acts. Consequently, the detention of that person based on his pr