It's kind of conflating the two things, as I think previous witnesses may have done.
Yes, there is no requirement to determine whether the evidence is admissible in the sense that it's put into a record of the case. It's a summary of the evidence that the requesting state is relying on, but the sufficiency of that evidence.... Once the court receives that evidence and looks at it, it's for the court to determine its sufficiency. It's not determined in advance. The person sought doesn't have to prove that it's not sufficient; the requesting state has to argue the sufficiency of the evidence that they're relying upon.
You've heard some comment about how all the evidence hasn't gone forward. I think that's part of one of your questions. It's to the detriment of the requesting state if they don't put enough evidence forward. They provide us with a document that outlines the evidence they're relying on.
It's similar to a preliminary inquiry in Canada. The concept is that we're not having a real trial; we're just establishing that there's some evidence that would justify having a trial. It's the same test we have in preliminary inquiries in Canada so that you don't waste the court's time with a trial if there's no evidence to justify going forward.
It's the same test and it's a similar process. It's the same in a domestic criminal preliminary inquiry. The Crown decides what they are relying on, but they don't necessarily put the whole case in front of the court.
With respect to extradition, just to clarify, it's the requesting state that decides what's going in front of the court, not what's been referred to as the prosecutor or the lawyer for the Attorney General of Canada who is appearing in front of the court. They're putting forward the case provided to them by the requesting state. It's not a question of deciding how much of this we will put forward; it's there, and we put it forward. That's what they've asked us to rely on. If it's not enough, that's to their detriment.
That sort of answers the first question, I think.
I don't think it makes sense to build up the level of proof to a higher level. It's a level that we're familiar with in the criminal justice system, the prima facie case that's used in a preliminary inquiry. It wouldn't make sense to make it “beyond a reasonable doubt”, because that's the trial standard. The standard that's being proposed is what you use at a civil trial.