Justice and Home Affairs Opt-out

John Hemming Excerpts

Monday 7th April 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Raab]

Of course it could be reached. I was a Foreign Office lawyer for six years. I would love to obsess, fixate and opine on all the legal niceties, but this is about political will. Ultimately, these issues come down to political will.

Many Members have quoted ACPO’s submission on the importance of the European arrest warrant. I accept that it has been very clear about that. However, as I said earlier, it has not been able to assess how many fugitives would go free if we did not opt back in to the European arrest warrant, but went down an alternative route. That is the Achilles heel in its argument. In fairness to ACPO, if one reads on from the statement that the hon. Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert) read out, it says:

“That said, extradition did exist before 2004 and so it could operate without it”—

that is, without the European arrest warrant—

“as it does with non-EU states.”

The idea that we would face a cliff edge and that fugitives would go free left, right and centre—we have the tabloid scare stories about terrorist suspects and paedophiles—is nonsense. The only way in which that could happen would be if the EU was prepared to cut off its nose to spite its face and refuse to have any extradition relations with us at all. What possible interest would it have in doing that?

I listened carefully to the police evidence, as I think has been borne out by my comments today. I also want to look at the non-police evidence. Fair Trials International has given evidence at length about the miscarriages of justice that have taken place. The appalling miscarriage of justice in the Andrew Symeou case, in terms of both the incompetence of the Greek system and the gruesome jail conditions that he ended up in, are passed by very glibly by those who suggest that we should opt straight back in or that we should opt back in and then somehow reform the system without having the leverage that we have now.

I have the constituency case of Colin Dines, who is subject to a European arrest warrant that alleges his involvement in a mass telecoms fraud involving the Mafia back in Italy. No evidence has been presented of his links to that crime. No attempt has been made to come to the UK to interview him, to get his side of the story or to see if the matter can be straightened out. In the process, with the stress and the strain, he has suffered a stroke, only to find out that the case is crumbling and that the substantive charges look very likely to be dropped or, at least, that a face-saving way out will be found by the Italian authorities. There are other cases, such as those of Edmond Arapi and Deborah Dark.

I respect the Liberal Democrat position on the European arrest warrant, but when I heard the Deputy Prime Minister, in the Farage-Clegg debate, dismissing the Symeou case as “fantasy”, it was deeply disappointing. It was right that he subsequently corrected his position on the Symeou case. As someone who has met the family of Mr Symeou and the other victims to whom I have referred and who still sees the Dines family, who continue to suffer from the European arrest warrant, I find the glib dismissal of a civil liberties issue by the Liberal Democrats difficult to reconcile with their supposed advocacy of British freedom.

[John Hemming (Birmingham, Yardley) (LD)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Raab]

I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will correct that impression.

[John Hemming]

I just want to say that I do have concerns about the individual cases involving the European arrest warrant.

[Mr Raab]

I am glad that I took that intervention. The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right.

We need to work out the best way to reform the European arrest warrant through national legislation and by renegotiating the EU framework decision or, better still, by opting out and pursuing a bilateral treaty, which would mean that the British Supreme Court had the last word on the fate of British citizens. We ought to have a sensible debate about all of that.

I note that the Liberal Democrats’ answer to the problems of the European arrest warrant is another EU directive on the rights of the accused. A Liberal Democrat would say that, the answer to defects in EU law is always more EU law, but we must consider the systemic lack of judicial capacity and the lack of standards in some countries—I have mentioned Italy and Greece, which are not new EU member states, so heaven help people if they end up in the Romanian or Bulgarian justice systems or, worse still, in one of their jails. I welcome the hon. Gentleman’s intervention, but I do not understand how swiftly the Liberal Democrats have sold the freedom and civil liberties of British citizens because of their slavish adherence to EU dogma and the idea that ever more EU integration must be a good thing. We should not accept the Faustian bargain whereby we sacrifice a few British citizens to lock up a few extra criminals. That is not my idea of British justice. It is not what millions in this country fought for in world wars. It is not the tradition of this country dating back to Magna Carta.

We have options—that is critical—whether falling back on the Council of Europe conventions, which are not foolproof, or taking advantage of the legal personality of the EU to negotiate bespoke legal arrangements that do not fall within the ECJ jurisdiction. Hon. Members have referred to transitional arrangements, which could buy us some time. All of those are the common-sense middle ground we should be aiming for. There is absolutely no reason why a single serious criminal fugitive would go free if we considered such arrangements. To suggest otherwise is ridiculous scaremongering.

I have one final point to make on the European arrest warrant. There are reports in The Daily Telegraph today that Spain and France will not even countenance Britain adopting a proportionality test in UK law, even though the framework decision allows that. What chance would we have of renegotiating the framework decision after we opt in if they object to that now? Our leverage is at this point in time. We should take full advantage of it to achieve the best deal for British citizens.

The case I want to make is for operational co-operation with our EU friends without ceding democratic control. Britain has—by far, overall—the finest intelligence and law enforcement assets in the EU. The EU has legal personality, so it is much easier to negotiate justice and home affairs agreements. I have asked parliamentary questions on this. The EU has countless, by which I mean a good 10 or dozen, justice and home affairs international agreements with third countries. We have the precedent of Frontex—we are not a full member but co-operate on an administrative basis, which works incredibly well. We need to avoid the creeping supra-nationalism of the EU in justice and home affairs.

For all the talk of EU justice and home affairs safeguarding British law enforcement, the raw fact is that EU JHA has severely undermined our power to protect the British public by removing or deporting serious criminals. That will only get worse in the years ahead.