UK Extradition Arrangements

Conor Burns Excerpts

Monday 5th December 2011 Commons Chamber

[Conor Burns (Bournemouth West) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Esher and Walton (Mr Raab) on securing this debate. He has shown his usual tenacity and principle, which are becoming his hallmark.

It is a bit of a relief, on this one-line Whip, to escape the burdens of PPS-dom and speak out on something about which I have felt passionately for some time. I have recently written a pamphlet entitled “The case against the European arrest warrant”, which will be published shortly.

I will not trespass on my time by speaking a lot about the United States, except to place on the record my support and sympathy for Gary McKinnon and his family, who in my judgment have been badly treated. The public share that view strongly.

I will concentrate on the European arrest warrant. My hon. Friend’s motion is moderate in calling on the Government

“to reform the UK’s extradition arrangements to strengthen the protection of British citizens”.

As the hon. Member for Aberavon (Dr Francis) said, there is an emerging consensus in this House that that is something the Government should do.

The political and emotional context in which the European arrest warrant emerged after the desperate events in New York on 11 September has been alluded to. In evidence to the Joint Committee on Human Rights at that time, the Liberal Democrat MEP Sir Graham Watson, who was chairman of the European Parliament’s justice and home affairs committee, said that

“the proposal would still be on a shelf gathering dust if it hadn’t been for the events in New York… Mr. Bin Laden helped make it a reality”.

There is a great deal of truth to that.

The workability of the European arrest warrant hinges on the principle of reciprocity between our courts and the courts of other countries. I will not dwell on this point because my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) and my hon. Friend the Member for Esher and Walton spoke passionately about why that is not a reality.

Another element that is central to making the European arrest warrant work is proportionality in its application. On 9 January 2007, the presidency of the European Council delivered a communiqué to the body’s working party on co-operation in criminal matters, examining the application of the proportionality principle in matters relating to the European arrest warrant. Article 5 of the pre-Lisbon treaty on the functioning of the European Union stated that the proportionality principle is applied in respect of the four freedoms of the European Union, chiefly the free movement of goods, services, persons and capital. The treaty stated, however, that

“any action by the Community shall not go beyond what is necessary to achieve the objectives of the Treaty.”

It is surely clear that in its application, the European arrest warrant has gone well beyond proportional use.

Let us look at some of the examples of warrants being issued. They have been issued in respect of offences such as the possession of 0.4 grams of cannabis, 1.5 grams of marijuana or three ecstasy tablets, the theft of two car tyres and even the theft of a piglet. There was also the case of a person arrested while driving a car with a blood alcohol level of 0.81 mg, compared with a UK limit of 0.80 mg. The problem has been recognised even by the European Commissioner with responsibility for justice, fundamental rights and citizenship. She stated last November that

“European arrest warrants should not be issued mechanically, or automatically, for crimes that are not very serious such as bicycle theft.”

Then there is the question of the number of European arrest warrants issued, which is also central to the application of the system. In 2009, the total number of arrest warrants issued was 14,789. My hon. Friend the Member for Esher and Walton will doubtless be aware that Bulgaria, Hungary and Italy were unable to provide figures for the number of arrest warrants issued in their countries. That backs up his point about the differences between systems. Poland issued 4,844, and France, a similar-sized country to the United Kingdom, issued 1,240. In the United Kingdom, we issued a mere 220.

We can also examine where those citizens were living when the warrants were issued. Despite the United Kingdom being in the bottom quarter of issuers of warrants, those issued against people in the UK represented 38.8% of all the warrants issued across the whole European Union.

[Mr David Davis]

Top of the league.

[Conor Burns]

Indeed.

There is a fundamental question whether the European arrest warrant is compatible with habeas corpus as we understand it in this country. The excellent Lord Vinson of Roddam Dene challenged the Home Office Minister then responsible in the other place, saying:

“The fact remains that hundreds of UK citizens are being compelled to appear before any EU court without the merit of the often frivolous charges being first assessed. They can be locked up without pre-trial. Is she not concerned that this totally overrides the ancient liberties of the British citizen enshrined in Magna Carta and habeas corpus? Will she assure the House that this will be resolved?”

The then Minister, Baroness Neville-Jones, responded:

“My Lords, the Government are concerned…with the disproportionate use of the European arrest warrant for trivial purposes.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 26 January 2011; Vol. 724, c. 955-56.]

That is another example of the consensus that is emerging across Parliament.

Then there is the question of the principle of dual criminality. Under the European arrest warrant, British citizens or those living in the United Kingdom can be extradited to another European country for crimes that may not necessarily even be offences under United Kingdom law. That concern was raised by the Home Affairs Committee in its report on the application of the European arrest warrant of November 2002. The Committee stated that it had

“grave concerns about the abolition of the dual criminality safeguard. The variety of criminal justice systems and of legislative provisions within the member states of the EU makes it difficult for us to be…confident…that it will be acceptable in all circumstances for a person to be extradited from the UK to face proceedings for conduct that does not constitute”

a crime in the UK. The fact that the European arrest warrant could necessitate a British court extraditing a British citizen for something that would not be illegal in the UK represents an entirely unacceptable incursion into our British criminal justice system.

I am not a lawyer. I think my constituents regard being a politician as crime enough without being a lawyer as well, but to be a law-maker one does not have to be a lawyer. Most of my constituents are not lawyers either, but they smell that something is not right in the exercise of the European arrest warrant. They want the British Government to stand up for British citizens, and they want the freedoms and protections under the law that we have cherished for years.