Police and Justice Bill

I spoke to these amendments at an earlier point and there is only one additional matter to which I wish to draw the attention of noble Lords. I am prompted to do so by the comments of the noble Baroness about the appropriateness of the judiciary making judgments about forums. The United Kingdom has been a party to two European conventions; one is the Council Framework Decision of 13 June 2000 on the European arrest warrant and surrender procedures and the other is the European Convention on Extradition. Paragraph 7 of Article 4 of the Council Framework Decision states: "““The executing judicial authority shall refuse to execute the European arrest warrant,""7. where the European arrest warrant relates to offences which:""““(a) are regarded by the law of the executing member state as having been committed in whole or in part in the territory of the executing member state or in a place treated as such””." So during the term of office of this Government they have agreed, on behalf of the United Kingdom, to that clause in that decision. It is quite plain that we think a judge is entitled to take that decision. Similar provisions are set out in Article 7 of the European Convention on Extradition.