Justice committee  Good afternoon, and thank you to the committee for inviting me to give evidence. I think the questions the committee is examining are drawing out some of the inherent tensions that exist within the extradition system. The need to ensure effective co-operation for prosecution an

Justice committee  Thank you. I think that we need to be clearer about political motivation in terms of the way I've used it in particular cases. There are a number of ways in which [Technical difficulty—Editor] argue that a prosecution was brought for an improper reason because, obviously, prose

Justice committee  I think the difficulty is really working out to what level you want to examine a case. I appreciate that your system, with the records of cases, is obviously slightly different from what we have in the U.K. As I was saying earlier on, in a large number of countries, no evidence a

Justice committee  I'm sorry, but I didn't hear that session. Could you just explain what you mean by the experience of racialized Canadians?

Justice committee  There is a specific set of bars that can apply if you can show that people are being discriminated against for those reasons. The bars apply if you can show someone is being prosecuted for that particular reason or that they may face some form of prejudice after they are extradit

Justice committee  That's something that we struggle with in the U.K., because we have an absolute prohibition in relation to surrendering to torturers. However, when we're looking at extradition, we're looking at something prospectively, so the test is whether there is a real risk of violation of

Justice committee  In some instances, consular officials have been delegated to do this. The difficulty is that, if it's not a British national, the British consular officials don't have any right to see the person, but of course, the country can agree to it. However, that gives [Technical difficul

Justice committee  I'm not sure the U.K. is a very good example. We now have this system with the EU that allows for extradition requests that many EU members face, and because they have this principle of legality, they don't exercise any discretion. For most countries where this principle doesn't

Justice committee  It came about through legislation rather than case law. I think I just need to explain a bit further because that's not quite what it does. It says that if there's a substantial measure of conduct that took place in the U.K. then the forum bar applies. That's the gateway. That ge

Justice committee  That also came about legislatively. It arose just because, as I said, there was a lot of public concern about the number of offences that were being sought from the EU member states that were thought of as being trivial. There are three limbs to the proportionality bar and it onl

Justice committee  That is a decision of the judge. In fact, the minister in the U.K. has a very limited role now. The minister used to have a very broad discretion, in the same way as I think you currently have in Canada, but over time, that has been narrowed down for the reasons I gave in my open

Justice committee  I'm certainly not an expert on Canadian law, so I'm not in a position to really comment on that. I've read some academic discussion that said that there is, in Canadian case law, a distinction between prosecutors acting in a domestic criminal case, and the role they fulfill withi

Justice committee  I did do that, and that is why I've highlighted some of the issues. I've reviewed some of the testimony about the existing system in Canada. Whilst I'm not an expert on Canadian extradition law, those issues have led me to highlight for you some of the reforms we have put forward

Justice committee  As I say, I'm not a Canadian extradition lawyer, so from my assessment of the issues that I've seen raised in the context of Canadian extradition arrangements, the one that I think is common to Canada and the U.K. is this issue of diplomatic assurances. I think this is an issue t

Justice committee  To my mind, that is the most important question, because I do not believe anybody thinks that people should be allowed to get away with committing a crime and not be prosecuted for it. For those cases where there is sufficient evidence to suggest that somebody should face trial,