UK-US Extradition Treaty

I agree entirely with my right hon. Friend and I also agree that parity is vital. That leads me to my next point, which concerns parts 1 and 2 of the 2003 Act. Part 1 deals with the European arrest warrant, which is backed by the fact that the signatories are signatories to the European convention on human rights. I want to pick up on the earlier intervention of the hon. Member for Sunderland, South (Mr. Mullin). He might have been about to make this point himself, but I will make it. In the summary of the report that considered that legislation, his Select Committee pointed out the following:"““we express concerns about proposals to relax the requirement that extradition requests from non-European countries must demonstrate that there is a prima facie case to answer””." The report goes into greater detail on that issue later. However, that is exactly what the Government chose to do, and they chose to do so in the context of the United States, when they were also aware that in fact, there would be no parity in terms of the test that had to be applied on both sides. The weakest point of the Government’s argument, both here and—in the light of yesterday’s debate in the Lords—in the other place, is the extraordinary assertion that reasonable cause and making out mere suspicion, which is all that it boils down to, are on a par with each other. We have a substantial hurdle to overcome in the United States. The tendering of prima facie evidence in an evidential sense is not necessarily required, but the making of a prima facie case in a documentary and discursive sense is certainly required, although it can be done by hearsay. In contrast, all that the United States must now do is send in a document in which it sets out a case. As long as that case is made out, and the other criteria, which are a list of safeguards on identity, dual criminality, double jeopardy and the illness of the defendant, are satisfied—[Interruption.] As long as those criteria, including the Human Rights Act 1998, are satisfied, there can be no possibility of further examination of the material to decide whether the extradition should happen. The Solicitor-General knows about the Raissi case, which posed the threat of a serious miscarriage of justice. Under the existing new rules, Mr. Raissi would undoubtedly have gone to the United States. He was spared that because it turned out, as the prima facie case was examined, that there was a case of mistaken identity. More than that, the case against him was entirely flawed. Those are not slight or academic matters but have a practical impact. In deciding to grant this special privilege to the United States of designation under section 84(7) of the Act, the Government have made a mistake. The lack of parity immediately gives rise to the taint of unfairness. In any event, I have some reservations about moving away from the old test in the case of non-European countries generally. In that regard, I have genuine anxieties that go beyond merely the UK-US extradition treaty.