Extradition Law Meaning

Risk of suicide: Cases where there is a risk of suicide have also been invoked in article 8, as the public interest in extradition must be considered in the light of the risk of suicide of the person in the event of extradition. In Jason v. Latvia, extradition was refused on these grounds because the offence for which the person was wanted was not sufficient to compensate for the high risk of suicide that had been considered to exist for the person in the event of extradition. [39] A Hong Kong extradition bill introduced in April 2019 led to one of the largest protests in the island`s history, with 1 million protesters joining the protests on June 9, 2019. [52] They took place three days before the Hong Kong government`s plan to bypass the committee process and submit the controversial bill directly to the entire legislature in order to expedite its passage. [52] Requests for international extradition are not made by individuals. Only law enforcement agencies can apply for extradition, usually after charges have been laid and a court has issued an arrest warrant for the person. If the person is wanted in the United States, the Bureau of International Affairs will work with the prosecutor to prepare an extradition request to a foreign country. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs submits the request to foreign countries through diplomatic channels. No country in the world has an extradition treaty with every other country; For example, the United States does not have extradition treaties with China, Russia, Namibia, the United Arab Emirates, North Korea, Bahrain and many other countries.

[3] [4] (See U.S. Extradition Act.) Extradition procedures are generally determined by reciprocal agreements between countries or by multilateral agreements between a group of countries. The European Union, for example, shares a system of extradition laws. In most jurisdictions, extradition is granted only if the alleged offence also violates the law of the requested country. Most countries also have an “exception for political crimes,” meaning that purely political crimes – such as electoral manipulation or defamation of a politician – cannot be extradited. Some countries also provide for an exception to double punishment, which refuses extradition if the person has already been tried for the offence in question. Article IV, Section 2 of the United States Constitution provides that, at the request of the governor of the accusing State, a State to which a person accused of a crime has absconded must expel the accused “to the State having jurisdiction over the crime”. When extraditing an accused from one State to another, most States follow the procedures set out in the Uniform Criminal Extradition Act, which has been adopted by most courts. A more recent uniform law, the Uniform Extradition and Restitution Act, is designed to streamline the extradition process and provide additional protection for the wanted person, but until 1995 it was adopted by only one state. Thesaurus: All synonyms and antonyms of extradition Applicants in extradition cases may challenge the lawfulness of their detention through a habeas procedure, arguing, for example, that the extradition treaty is not in force,[22] that the alleged crime constitutes political conduct subject to exceptions,[23] that the judge`s determination of the capacity to extradite does not comply with the requirements of the applicable laws and the treaty. of the United States, [24] that the extradition procedure was not constitutional,[25] and that the rapporteur has not been formally charged. [26] Even when a treaty is in force, many factors influence bilateral extradition cooperation, including law enforcement priorities, bureaucratic resources, and economic and political relations between countries.

For example, despite signing an extradition treaty in 1978, Mexico and the United States have feuded over extradition for more than a decade, culminating in the Camarena case in the late 1980s, when U.S. bounty hunters kidnapped a Mexican doctor suspected of aiding in the torture and murder of a U.S. drug protection officer. The episode poisoned extradition cooperation between the two countries for several years. Some countries, such as France, the Russian Federation, Germany, Austria, China and Japan, have laws prohibiting the extradition of their respective citizens. Others, like Israel, prohibit the extradition of their own citizens in their constitution. Others provide for such a prohibition of extradition treaties rather than their laws. Such restrictions are sometimes controversial in other countries, for example when a French citizen commits a crime abroad and then returns to his home country to avoid prosecution. [5] However, these countries make their criminal laws applicable to citizens abroad and convict citizens suspected of committing crimes abroad in accordance with their own laws. These suspects are usually prosecuted as if the crime had been committed within the country`s borders. The doctrine of speciality is also often applied, even if it is not explicitly stipulated in a contract. This means that once a person has been surrendered, he or she can only be prosecuted or punished for the crimes for which extradition was requested and not for other crimes committed prior to surrender.

The doctrine was first established more than a hundred years ago in United States v. Rauscher, 119 U.S. 407, 7 pp. Ct. 234, 30 L. ed. 425 (1886). In the Rauscher case, the accused is a U.S. citizen, was extradited from the United Kingdom for beating to death a ship`s crew member on a U.S. ship, but was charged and charged with cruel and unusual punishment on the basis of the same act. Although the special principle was not explicitly enumerated in the treaty authorizing extradition, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that an accused “shall not be arrested or tried for any crime other than that of which he has been charged in such trial.” Carlos Ghosn The former auto industry executive shocked the international business community in late 2019 when he arranged for former military agents to deport him from Tokyo, where he was under judicial surveillance, and transport him to Beirut, Lebanon.

His escape, which included a stop in Istanbul, was seen as an embarrassment to Japanese authorities, who have prosecuted Ghosn for alleged financial crimes. The incident has also strained relations between Japan and Lebanon, which do not have an extradition treaty. In response, Tokyo issued an Interpol red notice for Ghosn. In a limited number of cases, article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights has been invoked to prevent extradition. Article 8 states that everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life. This requires balancing the potential harm to privacy with the public interest in maintaining the extradition regime. [13] While this section is useful because it provides for a prohibition on extradition, the threshold required to comply with this prohibition is high. [13] Section 8 expressly provides that this right is subject to limits in the interests of national security and public safety, so that these limits must be balanced against this right in a hierarchical balance. Cases where extradition is requested generally concern serious crimes, so that while these limits are often justified, there have been cases where extradition could not be justified in view of the individual`s family life. Until now, these have been mainly dependent children for whom extradition would be contrary to the best interests of the child.

[13] In FK v. the Polish Judicial Authority, the Court ruled that the extradition of a mother of five young children would violate Article 8 if she were extradited for minor fraud committed a few years ago. [34] This case is an example of how the gravity of the crime for which extradition was requested was not proportionate to the protection of the interests of the person`s family. However, the Court noted in that case that even in cases where extradition is refused, a custodial sentence is imposed in accordance with the principles of comity. [35] In contrast, HH v. Deputy Prosecutor of the Italian Republic of Genoa is an example of how the public interest in authorising extradition outweighed the best interests of the children. In this case, both parents were extradited to Italy for serious crimes related to drug importation. [36] Section 8 meets not only the needs of children, but also all family members, but the high threshold required to meet section 8 means that children`s vulnerability is the circumstance most likely to meet that threshold. In Norris v. US (No. 2), a man attempted to argue that her health would be compromised if she were extradited and that his wife would become depressed.

[37] This request was rejected by the Court of Justice, which ruled that successful action under Article 8 would require “exceptional” circumstances. [38] The examination of the right to a fair trial is particularly complex in extradition cases. Its complexity lies in the fact that the court deciding on the surrender of the person must respect these rights, but must also be satisfied that any proceedings conducted by the requesting State after the granting of extradition also respect these rights. Article 14 of the ICCPR sets out a number of criteria for fair trial standards. [40] These standards have been reflected in courts that have shown that subjective considerations should be used to determine whether such trials would be “unfair” or “oppressive” taking into account, among other things, factors such as the time elapsed since the alleged offences, the health of the person, the conditions of detention in the requesting State and the likelihood of conviction. [41] However, it remains unclear how ICCPR standards are received or recognized by national courts and policy makers, although it appears that these standards can at least be used to inform the ideas of these decision-makers. [6]:35 If fair trial standards are found not to be met in the requesting country, this may constitute a sufficient obstacle to extradition.