I move that the Bill be now read a Second Time.
Most Deputies will, I think, be aware that this Bill replaces the Extradition Bill, 1963, which lapsed on the dissolution of the last Dáil. After the Second Stage was agreed to, the Committee Stage was passed on the understanding that the Bill would be recommitted to consider some Opposition amendments which were to be tabled. Subsequently, it became necessary to await the outcome of litigation, in Britain as well as here, as to the validity of the present arrangements for the reciprocal enforcement of criminal warrants between Britain and ourselves. As a result of the outcome of this litigation and of further consideration of the Bill, there are a number of changes in the Bill which Deputies have before them now as compared with the 1963 Bill.
Having regard to the fact that the general principle of having an up-to-date extradition law was agreed to in the last Dáil and is no doubt still generally acceptable I do not think I need spend much time in a detailed review of the various provisions of the Bill, particularly as an Explanatory Memorandum has been circulated with it and as we shall have an opportunity on the Committee Stage of going into particular points in detail. However, I think it right to draw to the attention of Deputies that Part II of the Bill, which provides for extradition generally— that is, otherwise than to Northern Ireland and Britain—is based almost entirely on the terms of the European Convention of Extradition, which was prepared under the auspices of the Council of Europe. This Convention came into force in 1960 and so far has been ratified by six members of the Council, namely, Denmark, Greece, Italy, Norway, Sweden and Turkey. The enactment of the Bill will enable the Convention to be ratified by this country and for us then to have reciprocal extradition arrangements with these countries after the making of a formal Government order under section 8 applying the provisions of Part II of the Bill to them. As regards other countries, we may either enter into separate and formal extradition agreements with them or have informal extradition arrangements provided the Government are satisfied that reciprocal extradition facilities will be available from the countries concerned. In the latter cases the Government order applying Part II to these countries may be made subject to such conditions, exceptions and qualifications as may be specified in the order.
The European Convention was drafted in accordance with principles which involve a departure from the existing law of extradition as set out in the Extradition Act, 1870. Probably the main departure is that the Convention does not require the requesting State to submit prima facie evidence against the person claimed. Under the 1870 Act a prima facie case was obligatory in every case. This prima facie requirement is a feature of the extradition of the common law countries. On the other hand, these countries do not generally object to the extradition of their nationals once such evidence is forthcoming. In the European civil law countries, extradition may be allowed on evidence that a person is wanted for prosecution or punishment under an order of a competent authority of the requesting country; but, again speaking generally, these countries will not allow their nationals to be extradited and prefer to try them at home for the offence committed abroad.
Insistence on the doctrine of the prima facie case rests to some extent on the suspicion of inadequacy of proceedings under other systems of law. If this ground were fully accepted there would be no extradition at all and no concerted action among States for the suppression of crime. It is axiomatic that before we make an extradition agreement with any particular country we must satisfy ourselves that the legal system and judicial institutions of that country are such as to ensure that the extradited person will get a fair trial. If we are not satisfied on this point we should not make an extradition agreement at all. We must accept that the legal systems of the other Council of Europe member countries are satisfactory. Certainly the nationals of those countries are quite satisfied with their criminal procedures and, as a general rule, it will be nationals of these countries that we will be extraditing. These nationals cannot complain that they will not get a fair trial for an ordinary criminal offence.
Ordinarily the act for which extradition is requested will not be an offence here, though it must be an act which, if committed here, would be an offence. Accordingly, our society has not been injured by the alleged criminal act and the law which is to be enforced as a consequence of extradition is that of the requesting State. As the particular act for which extradition is sought is not punishable here, all that we should want to know is that the charge is such as to call for concerted repressive action, for co-operation in having the alleged offender brought before a court in the requesting country for the purposes of having a fair trial.
It is true that the surrender of a person for prosecution will, if he is subsequently adjudged not guilty, involve him in hardship; but this does not seem a reason why the requested State should insist on substituting its preliminary criminal procedure, which is often quite different in character from that of the requesting State. It is a hardship on anyone, whether extradited or not and whether prima facie evidence is available or not, to be accused and to be subsequently found “not guilty”. In most legal systems an accused person has legal redress in cases of malicious prosecution and in many countries he may be given his costs if a case is brought against him which should clearly not have been brought at all. These cases are, however, quite exceptional. The fact that an accused is discharged usually does not mean that he should not have been charged at all, but that the prosecution have not discharged the burden of proof.
Apart from the feeling of suspicion that other systems of criminal procedure are in some way inadequate, another ground for urging the continuation of the system of requiring prima facie evidence is based on the protection of the individual against oppression. It must be remembered that the Bill provides adequate safeguards against oppression by prohibiting extradition for political offences. Moreover, this prohibition extends to cases where there are substantial grounds for believing that the request for extradition, even where it appears to relate to an ordinary criminal offence, has been made for the purpose of prosecuting or punishing a person on account of his race, religion, nationality or political opinion or that that person's position may be prejudiced for any of these reasons.
However, there may be particular cases where it would be desirable to allow the Government to provide, in the interests of having full reciprocity and where an extradition agreement may allow for the extradition of our nationals, that the relevant extradition arrangement should require the requesting country to produce to us sufficient evidence of the commission of the offence by the person claimed. Provision to this effect has been made in section 22.
As regards the extradition of nationals, which is not specifically prohibited under the present law, the Bill provides for such a prohibition in the absence of any provision to the contrary in the extradition agreement. Here again the Bill allows the Government room to negotiate with countries with differing policies in this respect. If the law of some countries does not allow them to extradite their nationals the Government will no doubt include a similar prohibition on the extradition of our nationals in the relevant arrangement. It would be undesirable, however, that an Irish citizen who has committed a grave offence abroad and is exempt from extradition under such an arrangement should go unpunished. Section 38 provides accordingly that at the request of the country in which the offence was committed the Attorney General may direct proceedings in respect of the offence to be taken in our courts. Where, on the other hand, a country is prepared to allow extradition of its nationals, we shall be free to allow reciprocity in this respect also.
Another departure from the principles of the 1870 Act is that extraditable offences are not being specifically listed. Instead, an extraditable offence is being defined by reference to the maximum penalty which may be imposed for it under the law of the two countries concerned or, where the person has already been sentenced, by the actual penalty imposed. The advantage of having a list of extradition crimes is that extradition can be confined to specified serious crimes, such as murder, manslaughter, robbery with violence, etc., but in practice, as in the 1870 Act, some crimes are specified in general terms which would permit extradition for what possibly might be trivial offences (for example, obtaining money or goods by false pretences). The disadvantage is that fresh legislation must be enacted whenever it becomes necessary to add to the list of extraditable crimes. Difficulties may arise, too, owing to the lack of uniformity in the definition of crimes under different systems of criminal law.
On the whole, the balance of advantage seems to lie in the solution adopted in the European Convention. Accordingly section 10 of the Bill provides that an offence to be extraditable must be punishable under the law of both countries to the extradition arrangement by a maximum of at least one year's imprisonment or, if there has been a conviction and sentence, where imprisonment for a period of at least four months or a more severe penalty, such as the death penalty, has been imposed. It may be noted that these limits are minimum limits. A particular extradition arrangement could provide, for example, that extradition would be allowed only for offences carrying a maximum penalty of at least two years or even five years.
These are, I think, the main features of the Part of the Bill dealing with extradition generally. I now turn to Part III of the Bill which authorises for the first time the execution of Northern Ireland warrants in the State, as well as the continuance, with amendments, of the arrangements for executing British warrants which operated up to last year. Under the former procedure, which was based on the Petty Sessions (Ireland) Act of 1851, the enforcement of British and Irish warrants, when fully endorsed, was entirely automatic with no provision for judicial review, apart of course from habeas corpus proceedings. The 1963 Bill introduced a number of safeguards into that procedure by providing for restrictions on the enforcement of warrants in political, revenue and purely military cases and for each arrested person to be given an opportunity of consulting a solicitor if he desired to do so. Since that Bill was last before the House, however, the Petty Sessions Act procedure was declared invalid by the British House of Lords in a case which concerned a man named Hammond who was arrested in England on a warrant issued here. Subsequently, in July, 1964, the British authorities, as a temporary measure, restored the enforceability of our warrants by Order in Council. Since then they have, in consultation with us, introduced a Bill putting the enforcement of our warrants in Britain and Northern Ireland on a basis which is on the general lines of that contained in Part III of this Bill. The British Bill has been passed by their House of Lords and has had a Second Reading in their House of Commons.
On our side, too, there was litigation which resulted in the Supreme Court declaring, in July, 1964, that section 29 of the Petty Sessions Act was unconstitutional in so far as it enabled a person to be removed from the jurisdiction without having an opportunity of applying for habeas corpus.
Having regard to all these developments, Part III of the 1963 Bill has been extensively revised and a number of additional safeguards introduced. It is now provided that a person who has been arrested under a British or Northern Ireland warrant must be brought before a justice or the District Court or a peace commissioner. The justice may then remand the prisoner in custody or on bail for delivery into the custody of the British or Northern Ireland police. The prisoner may not be removed from the State, except with his consent, for a minimum of 15 days after such an order is made or while any application to the High Court or the Minister for Justice for his release is pending. The object of this provision is, of course, to ensure that the person concerned has an adequate opportunity for considering whether he desires to exercise his constitutional rights. However, an obligation is being placed on the Court to tell him of the existence of these safeguards at the time it makes the order.
A further important and new safeguard, which is contained in section 47, requires that the District Court shall not make an order for the removal of a person from the State if it appears that the offence specified in the warrant does not correspond with an offence which under the law of the State is an indictable offence or is punishable on summary conviction by imprisonment for a maximum period of at least six months. If the court is so satisfied it must discharge the prisoner.
A new provision in section 49 deals with provisional warrants. Before now there has been no provision, such as there is in Part II, for the arrest of a person in a case of urgency where the warrant has not arrived, but this section now provides that the district justice may issue a provisional warrant on the sworn information of a member of the Garda Síochána, not below the rank of inspector, that he has reason to believe that a warrant has been issued for the arrest of a person accused or convicted of an indictable offence, but that the warrant is not yet in his possession, and that he has received a request made on the ground of urgency for the arrest of that person. The section goes on to provide that such a warrant will be valid for only five days and that a person arrested under it must be brought before the District Court which may remand him either in custody or on bail for a period of not more than three days.
Another departure from the 1851 Act procedure is contained in section 52 where provision is made for releasing on bail a person in respect of whom an order for his handing over has been made, on condition that he will present himself at a named Garda Station at the time mentioned in a notice in writing to be served on him by the Gardaí and which will, of course, be related to the time the Gardaí expect the British or Northern Ireland escort to arrive. If he does not present himself at the time stated a warrant may be issued for his arrest.
The other safeguards included in Part III of the 1963 Bill have been maintained. For example, there is a prohibition on the surrender to Britain or Northern Ireland of persons accused of political, revenue or purely military offences or in cases where there are substantial reasons for believing that the persons concerned will, if surrendered, be prosecuted for political or purely military offences. Warrants relating to imprisonment in default of the payment of a fine will not be enforced; nor will warrants for summary offences, unless the alleged offenders have had an opportunity of attending voluntarily at the relevant British or Northern Ireland court.
As I have said, Part III is on the general lines of the British Bill on this subject, which is well on its way to the statute book. I very gladly place on record my appreciation of the very valuable help we received from the British and Northern authorities during the consultations on both Bills, all of which augurs well for the extension of this co-operation in the criminal field to other aspects of mutual assistance in such matters as the enforcement of maintenance orders and the enforcement of judgments in civil cases. I shall press ahead with these other matters, of which some preliminary examination has already taken place, as soon as this Bill has become law.
In conclusion, I should like to express the hope that the Bill will commend itself to the House as a practical, non-controversial measure which represents a considerable step forward in co-operation in the administration of justice. If there are any particular aspects that Deputies would like to have clarified at this stage I shall endeavour to deal with them when replying but I will, in any event, give very careful consideration between now and Committee Stage to any suggestions that may be made in the course of the debate.
