Police and Justice Bill

My Lords, your Lordships will see that I did not assert that the noble Lord did anything otherwise. Indeed, I would go further and say that his dissent on the inclusion of America in the Extradition Act remains resolute to the end; at no stage did he weaken from that position. Armed, encouraged, given backbone and strengthened by this House, I sallied forth on its behalf to bring the news of its dissent to the Senate. This House knows me well; our American cousins may have been less well prepared. But we were able to marshal the arguments with the United States and explain to it the depth of disquiet that its lack of assiduousness on this matter had caused. I am therefore delighted to report that the sentiments expressed in this House had considerable effect. In passing these amendments on the last occasion, the House was essentially seeking to be helpful—to provide me with ammunition to assist me in Washington. I was well armed and the amendments appear to have done the trick, because the Senate has now given its consent and we must now, if I may respectfully suggest it, do our part by honouring that bargain to enable us to ratify the treaty. I thank all noble Lords who spoke so well in the debate, because I was able to deploy each of those arguments with our American colleagues to good effect. So where are we now? As I say, the US Administration strongly supported the purposes of the new treaty. The matter went through their process without objection or dissent. It was unanimous. I know that the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart, thought that there was not a chance that this could be done before mid-term elections. Their programme was absolutely packed and, therefore, it was deemed futile to make the attempt. The fact that they did this demonstrates their total and wholehearted commitment to the agreement into which they honourably entered and which we jointly signed. This House fully understands why the United Kingdom and the United States signed that treaty. The treaty in 2003 defines extraditable offences by sentence threshold rather than by list. Therefore, we are no longer constrained by time. There are individuals who have committed very grave offences, but are incapable of being extradited at the moment because the time limit disables us from so doing. Ratification of this treaty will enable us to seek the return of some very serious offenders who have committed sexual offences or are alleged to have been involved in crimes where people have died by way of manslaughter, and others. It also introduces temporary surrender, which would enable us to extradite someone who is already serving a prison sentence. We have been able to take advantage of temporary surrender in relation to a European case: we have a serial rapist who is spending a very long period in prison in our country. We are able to surrender that person to another European jurisdiction because they have committed sexual offences elsewhere in Europe. It is a very valuable tool. The treaty also waives speciality protection, which enables prosecution for offences other than those for which extradition was sought. As I said earlier, it lifts the limitation bar on extradition. Amendments Nos. 36 and 85 would prevent ratification of the treaty. The United States Senate has given its consent to the treaty and has sent it to the President for ratification. All that remains to be done is for your Lordships to lift your insistence on the amendments to the Extradition Act. Then the instruments of ratification can be exchanged and the treaty will forthwith enter into force. Two issues have caused concern. The first is ““forum””. Amendments Nos. 81 and 84 would require judges to make decisions about prosecution, which would be an entirely new and perhaps wrong procedure in our law. Judges are independent of prosecution and defence. I think that it was Lord Dilhorne who said: "““A judge must keep out of the arena. He should not have or appear to have any responsibility for the institution of a prosecution””." It is one of the fundamental bases on which our criminal justice system rests. I am grateful for having been reminded of that very important judgment by my noble and learned friend the Attorney-General. Others have compared our laws with those of other countries, and I simply remind your Lordships that the jurisprudence of England and Wales is significantly different from that in other countries and from our European colleagues. The forum amendments could result in a person escaping justice altogether. No one, whatever the accusation they face, will be or has been extradited from the United Kingdom to places with which the Human Rights Act would find a level of incompatibility. The expressed and implied protections of the Human Rights Act mean that extradition which does not comply with those terms will be prevented. I know that comments were made in the other place to the effect that: if we were to return someone, would they be sent to Guantanamo Bay? I assure all Members of the House that the arrangements we have with the United States would not allow that to happen. We are strongly of the view that questions about the most appropriate forum should be considered on a case-by-case basis by independent prosecutors from the relevant jurisdictions.