My Lords, the agreement with the EU covers such a wide variety of matters, and the time for scrutinising this Bill is so very short, that one has to be selective. My choice has been to look at how this necessary Bill seeks to give effect in domestic law to the surrender provisions in Part 3.
The surrender provisions must be compared with the EU’s framework decision that governs the European arrest warrant to see what we have lost and what we have gained. We were always going to lose our right as an EU member state to require those countries whose fundamental principles prohibit the surrender of their
nationals to third countries to surrender them to us— and so it has been. But we have made up for that by securing agreement to some new protections and to a more comprehensive scheme that, as the European Court of Justice now has no role, leaves as little room for mishaps and misunderstandings as possible. On balance, the scheme—though second best—seems to be as good as we could have hoped for.
How, then, does the Bill seek to give effect to these provisions in domestic law? Clause 11 tells us that member states are to remain category 1 territories. That means that the new scheme is to be dealt with under the accelerated procedure in Part 1 of the Extradition Act. That is as it should be, as the surrender scheme itself provides for an accelerated procedure for which Part 1 of that Act was designed. However, there are differences. Part 1 of the Extradition Act does not mention the principle of proportionality, for example, which lies at the heart of the new scheme, and the new scheme clarifies the circumstances in which a public prosecutor can be considered a judicial officer—something that always puzzled us—which that Act does not do.
It is plain for these and other reasons that Part 1 of the Extradition Act requires amendment if it is to meet the requirements of the new scheme. For the time being, we are left with the general implementation provisions in Clause 29, but that clause leaves too much to the judgment of the individual judges and others who will be required to operate this system. Uncertainty and inconsistent decisions will follow. It falls very far short of what is needed here. We can be sure that on its side, the EU will do what is necessary. These amendments are required and must be made as soon as possible.
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