Extradition Act 2003

[liamreed]

For anyone that doesn't know about this very useful but sneaky little piece of legislation here is a wiki run-down;

The Extradition Act 2003 (c.41) is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It came into force on 1 January 2004 and all import and export extradition requests submitted or received from this date are covered by the Act. It concerns itself with extradition to and from the UK in respect of all territories and in particular implements into UK law the 2003 US-UK Extradition Treaty

Parts 1 and 2 deal with "category 1" and "category 2" territories respectively. While it is not mentioned in the Act, category 1 territories are all other member states of the European Union and Part 1 of the Act is the United Kingdom's implementation of the European Arrest Warrant framework decision. Part 2 of the Act is concerned with extradition to all other countries which have an extradition treaty with the United Kingdom.
Part 3 deals with issuing European Arrest Warrants and extradition warrants.
Part 4 regulates powers of arrest, search and seizure regarding individuals subject to European Arrest Warrants and extradition warrants.
Part 5 contains miscellaneous provisions including extradition to and from British overseas territories.

Basic upon receiving an arrest warrant a British citizen can be extradited which is all good and well but a particular country has been extraditing individuals from the united kingdom when no British laws have been broken.

What is the parties stance on this?


The answer I dearly want to hear is that when the individual has broken a domestic law, i.e. murder, rape or theft, the should be extradited and tried in the country the incident the infraction occurred. In relation to "cyber" crime that should be the country of the physical terminal that was used in the crime.

[Duke]

Basic upon receiving an arrest warrant a British citizen can be extradited which is all good and well but a particular country has been extraditing individuals from the united kingdom when no British laws have been broken.

If that is the case those extraditions are illegal. ss10 and 78 (for Part 1 and Part 2 countries respectively) confirm that a person cannot be extradited unless they are accused of some activity which would constitute a sufficiently-serious offence if carried out in the UK (details in ss64-65 and ss137-138). Although there may be some exceptions for certain EU law thingamies, but that only applies to the EAW/Part 1 countries.

In relation to "cyber" crimes the big issue is over jurisdiction. When an individual sits at a computer in country A, accessing a server in country B, communicating with people in country C, to carry out an activity that may cause harm to people in country D, where should they be prosecuted? Under the EA2003, the UK is perfectly happy to extradite to any of those, so it is up to the law of the extraditing country to claim jurisdiction over the action.

My main issue with the current law is that certain Part 2 countries (these ones, last time I checked) don't need to provide any evidence when they make an extradition request; they just need to say they have a local warrant for the defendant's arrest and what they are accused of doing. They don't have to provide any evidence to support their claims. This means that the first chance the defendant gets to view or challenge the evidence against them is in the foreign country. In theory, this should be fine as the Part 2a countries are supposed to have decent criminal justice systems, but in practice it can lead to all sorts of abuse.

Of course, it's an easy fix; simply re-categorise those countries. But no Home Secretary wants to annoy those countries to that degree, by taking action that comes to publicly indicating a lack of trust in their justice systems.

[liamreed]

Basic upon receiving an arrest warrant a British citizen can be extradited which is all good and well but a particular country has been extraditing individuals from the united kingdom when no British laws have been broken.

If that is the case those extraditions are illegal. ss10 and 78 (for Part 1 and Part 2 countries respectively) confirm that a person cannot be extradited unless they are accused of some activity which would constitute a sufficiently-serious offence if carried out in the UK (details in ss64-65 and ss137-138). Although there may be some exceptions for certain EU law thingamies, but that only applies to the EAW/Part 1 countries.

That is correct but due to several treaties that have been set up the level of offence required to permit extraditions is drastically reduced.

In relation to "cyber" crimes the big issue is over jurisdiction. When an individual sits at a computer in country A, accessing a server in country B, communicating with people in country C, to carry out an activity that may cause harm to people in country D, where should they be prosecuted? Under the EA2003, the UK is perfectly happy to extradite to any of those, so it is up to the law of the extraditing country to claim jurisdiction over the action.

This is also correct but as there is no definition to which country is to take the responsibility all inclusive parties have the right to charge and punish the individual causing a potentially proportionate level of punishment to the individual in regard to the original act.

My main issue with the current law is that certain Part 2 countries (these ones, last time I checked) don't need to provide any evidence when they make an extradition request; they just need to say they have a local warrant for the defendant's arrest and what they are accused of doing. They don't have to provide any evidence to support their claims. This means that the first chance the defendant gets to view or challenge the evidence against them is in the foreign country. In theory, this should be fine as the Part 2a countries are supposed to have decent criminal justice systems, but in practice it can lead to all sorts of abuse.

This was one of the main points I wanted to address since some countries such as those in the far east which, in some cases, make arrests and put someone to trial with nothing more than a single persons testimony against you. So should this be allowed if the third party country doesn't use the same evidence system as the domestic country?

Of course, it's an easy fix; simply re-categorise those countries. But no Home Secretary wants to annoy those countries to that degree, by taking action that comes to publicly indicating a lack of trust in their justice systems.[/quote]