Justice committee  In my view, I think that there should be some factors where nationality and residence do have more weight. Private and family life [Technical difficulty—Editor]. The right to be prosecuted in a particular country is another, so I do think there are some instances where it should

Justice committee  Of course. The obligation only exists if the prosecutor in the U.K. is aware of that information. As you rightly say, in many cases they won't be because the requesting state has to provide [Technical difficulty—Editor] evidence or a very limited amount of evidence. The obligati

Justice committee  That's entirely correct. They're political in the sense that specialty relations are countries [Technical difficulty—Editor], so it's one country saying to the other, “We will only prosecute for these things.” The death penalty requires an assurance, a diplomatic assurance, if th

Justice committee  Yes, in fact, [Technical difficulty—Editor] where any appeal is heard after the minister has made a decision. You have to wait for any appeal until the court has decided and the minister has decided. Once the minister has decided, then you can appeal again either or both of those

Justice committee  I'm sorry. I didn't hear the question.

Justice committee  Ordinarily, the court will look at NGO reports, country reports and U.S. State Department reports to see whether there's a prevalence of torture that has been independently verified. You would have to establish a general pattern, then you would normally have to identify how that

Justice committee  It is difficult, but I think it should be difficult to prove there is a risk of torture. The other thing we often use, in the U.K., is an expert witness. Once you have the objective material showing torture can be prevalent in particular countries, in particular situations [Tec

Justice committee  There are two ways this can make a difference. The first is in relation to foreign [Technical difficulty—Editor], because, if you can pass through the gateway of a substantial measure of conduct happening in the U.K, one of the criteria the court has to take into account is the

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,

Justice committee  In the United Kingdom, a Supreme Court case has established that the court, in extradition cases, must take into account the impacts of extradition on children. Obviously, there's always an impact, but it can't simply be that the child is deprived of the care of their parents. It

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  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