Police and Justice Bill

My hon. Friend and I know, as others will know from practising at the Bar, that judges day in and day out have to decide the issue of forum, whether it is in the civil or criminal jurisdiction. My hon. Friend is entirely right—it might be for a prosecutor to make a case, but it is for a judge to make a decision. I urge the House to support the Lords amendments because the Government’s opposition to them is unjust, unfair, undemocratic and damaging to the interests of this country and our citizens. In November 2003, the Extradition Bill, as it was then, to alter the extradition arrangements between the United States and this country became law. Such a measure became law in this country, but not in the United States. It is not certain whether the measure’s American counterpart is in force in the United States because although the new extradition treaty has been ratified by the United States Senate, it is not yet clear whether the President of the United States has signed the relevant legislation into law. In a sense, that might not matter to the argument that I will make against the Government’s conduct of the treaty and their acceptance of its contents. My complaint is that in March 2003 our Government, through the then Home Secretary, the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside (Mr. Blunkett), reached an agreement with the then United States Attorney-General, Mr. John Ashcroft, that replaced the 1972 British-American extradition treaty and, in doing so, did not protect our national interest. The new treaty is neither fair nor based in justice. The 1972 treaty set out each country’s obligations to the other. It was fair, just, balanced and transparent. The treaty allowed for the extradition of people from here to the United States if a prima facie case of criminal conduct could be shown in America that matched, or was similar to, a crime in this jurisdiction. We could extradite from the United States to Britain if we could show probable cause. I accept that there was a difference in wording, but, in all practical terms, the treaty demanded an equal legal test. In short, we had a treaty that honoured the doctrine of reciprocity. Each country had to show that there was evidence in the hands of the prosecution that, if uncontradicted by evidence from the accused, would be sufficient to justify conviction or demonstrate reasonable grounds for a suspicion of guilt. The 2003 treaty was signed by the two Governments without prior notice to the House. It was negotiated and signed behind our backs. We can speculate on the reason why the Government chose not to let us in on the secret, but until the former Home Secretary writes that part of his diaries, it can only be speculation. Was it part of some side deal on Iraq, or something to do with advancing the peace process in Northern Ireland? Was it because he did not know what he was doing, or because he was under such domestic pressure that he could not think straight? Who knows? We know, however, that the secret treaty of 2003 upset the balance of the 1972 treaty. The Americans need no longer demonstrate a prima facie case, but we must still show probable cause. They need only provide information, but we must have evidence, and the two are by no means identical concepts in law. That is what is fundamentally wrong with the current treaty. Even though the United States ratified it during our summer recess—all of us would accept that it took far too long to do so—it is a treaty to which the Government should not have agreed. Indeed, they would not have been allowed to agree to it if they had asked Parliament’s permission before signing it. The Government have never given any good reason for the provisions in the treaty that set a lower test for the United States than for the United Kingdom and which were made law in this country by the Extradition Act 2003. Nor has any good reason been given for the Home Secretary excluding the United States from the list of countries required to show a prima facie case under the designation order of November 2003. Why has the United States been removed, by Government order, from the list of countries in category 2 that have to show a prima facie case? I am concerned, too, that the Government have been careless with our citizens’ rights and the jurisdiction of our courts, which should try citizens for crimes committed in this country. When the Government introduced the European convention on human rights into domestic law, they proclaimed, quite falsely, that they were bringing human rights home, yet that same Government ignored the 1957 European convention on extradition and the European Council framework decision of June 2004, to which the UK is party while the United States is not.