Clause 11 - Bars to extradition
Extradition Bill
4:45 pm
Mr Bob Ainsworth (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Home Office; Coventry North East, Labour)
None of us wants extradition to take place in circumstances that would be unjust to the fugitive. The Bill provides a number of important safeguards to ensure that that does not happen. In this case, the key safeguard is clause 21, which sets out the protection given by the European convention on human rights. If extradition would breach a fugitive's rights under the convention, it cannot take place.
I am confident that that would apply in practice. A person's representative would be able to advance an argument that the passage of time had made extradition unjust, and the district judge would be able to consider the matter and satisfy himself as to whether the extradition should be ruled out because of the passage of time. That matter is covered by the ECHR provision, and the ability to make that argument is contained in the Bill.