Schedule 12 - Extradition
Police and Justice Bill
12:30 pm
Nick Herbert (Shadow Minister (Police Reform), Home Affairs; Arundel and South Downs, Conservative)
So far, our courts are denying that the matter can properly be considered under the convention on human rights; they say that it has not been breached. Whether there will be an appeal, as a consequence of which the decision that he suggests will be made, remains to be seen.
Similar defences of the current arrangements were offered by the then Under-Secretary when the order was approved, back in December 2003. She suggested that reciprocity had never been a feature of our extradition arrangements and that complete reciprocity was not possible. Perhaps complete reciprocity is not possible, but our citizens used to have the same protection as that which is afforded to United States citizens by their constitution. Now, our citizens enjoy lesser constitutional rights than US citizens. It is interesting that there are circumstances in which the written constitution of the United States is able to offer protections to its citizens that our constitution cannot offer to ours.
The Under-Secretary also suggested that France and Ireland had accepted the terms of the arrangements, and asked why it was necessary to single out the United States of America. That was to miss the point that in the extradition arrangements that have been negotiated with both France and Ireland, extradition may be refused according to the terms of the treaty if, under the law of the requested state, the offence is seen as having been committed on its territory. Those provisions are absent from the UK-US extradition treaty. Article 3.2 of the Irish-US extradition treaty says
“Extradition may be refused ... when the competent authorities of the Requested State have decided to refrain from prosecuting the person whose surrender is sought for the offense for which extradition is requested”.
Similarly, article 3 of the French-US treaty provides that the requested party may refuse to extradite a person claimed for an offence that is regarded by its law as having been committed in whole or in part in its territory or in a place treated as its territory, so the contention that France, Ireland and other countries have accepted terms similar to those that have been accepted in the United States is wrong.
My amendments will help to deal with the imbalance that has been created as a consequence of the existing extradition arrangements. I would be grateful for the Committee’s forbearance for a moment while I identify which amendments I am speaking to, as I note that they have been grouped separately. I do not want to make the mistake of speaking to the wrong ones. Does anyone have a marshalled list that they can offer me?