Yes.
The first recommendation was that the requesting state's evidence should not be presumed to be reliable. With the current system, all the requesting state has to do is a summary of the evidence. They don't have to disclose the evidence. In Hassan's case, they didn't even have to provide the handwriting analysis report. They only had to say that French expert X had come to this conclusion. That is presumed reliable. This shifts the burden onto the person sought to try to rebut it.
We had to have handwriting experts from different countries. We hired ones who worked for the FBI and the RCMP, and some who were Swiss. All of that not only cost money, with extra legal fees and was extremely expensive and unaffordable, but our system is based on the premise that the state should provide evidence of the reliability of its evidence, rather than the other way around. That's why shifting the burden to the person sought is not fair.
The second one is that when a person is going to be deprived of his or her liberty by going to prison for so many years, they should be allowed a chance to defend themselves. There should be disclosure of relevant evidence. We are not saying tons or all evidence that has been collected, but at least relevant evidence.
In Hassan's case, France did not disclose much relevant evidence. For example, they had done analysis on the hotel card. In France, this was done in 2008 and it's different from the one that was done by the RCMP. It showed that the fingerprint on the hotel card that was signed by the suspect was not Hassan's fingerprint. This was suppressed from the Canadian court. Actually, the Canadian court said that no fingerprint existed on the hotel card. We found out later, after Hassan was in France, that this was not truthful. If we had disclosure of the relevant evidence, Hassan would have known this and it could have made a difference in his extradition.
The other point is that Hassan was not allowed to call evidence. This is common to all people facing extradition. We had to convince the judge that the evidence Hassan was presenting was really relevant and it could knock the case out. The bar was very high. Hassan's lawyer had to argue for so many days in court for Hassan to be allowed to call the handwriting experts, for example.
The last one was mentioned by others. Extradition judges are not allowed to consider issues of fairness. In Hassan's case, the extradition judge would say things in court like, if this were in Canada, he would have done something different. He would say that, whether he liked it or not, this is the law and he has to abide by what the law says, even if he does not like it. When issues about fairness were mentioned, he would say that it was not under his domain, but that it was up to the Minister of Justice.
Again, I think we should empower the judges because they are more independent. I think judges in Canada are more likely to take difficult decisions than a Minister of Justice.