Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

Debate between Mark Durkan and Michael Ellis

Wednesday 30th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Michael Ellis]

I have a feeling that any Member of Parliament who was subject to the arrest warrant would not be so cavalier as to consider that one or two instances were nothing to worry about. We ought to have a system that applies fairly across the board.

According to a case study, in March last year the former Vice-President of Bosnia, Ejup Ganic, was arrested at Heathrow airport after Serbian judicial authorities issued an extradition warrant. He was accused of conspiracy to murder 40 Yugoslav People’s Army soldiers in an attack in May 1992. He was subsequently released on bail when the judge remarked that the arrest warrant issued by Serbia had been politically motivated. It was reported that Serbia had yet to produce any real evidence, and that most of its supposed evidence consisted of news articles about the incident. City of Westminster magistrates court blocked Ganic’s extradition in July last year. The presiding judge—who, as was pointed out by the right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Sir Gerald Kaufman), had considerable experience—said that he had been led to believe that the extradition proceedings were

“brought and being used for political purposes, and as such amount to an abuse of the process of this court”

Having worked in the criminal justice system for 17 years, I am concerned about the way in which the English legal system is perceived abroad, and the ramifications of some of the incidents that have occurred. For generations, the United Kingdom has been at the forefront of peace conferences and other such meetings. The very recent meeting to discuss Libya is a classic example. Circumstances in which people were fearful of entering this country because an extremely low threshold might result in their arrest would be injurious not only to the reputation of the United Kingdom’s legal system, but to the UK’s overall reputation for being a place where peace can be sought and arrangements can be made across the negotiating table. It is not in the interests of world order and international peace for obstructions to be placed in the way of people wishing to enter this country in the way that they have been doing. That does not, of course, apply to only one country; there are several other examples.

[Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)]

Does the hon. Gentleman not accept that the example he gave has nothing to do with private prosecutions being pursued in relation to universal jurisdiction, as it was an extradition matter? Does he not also accept that the court had a very serious threshold and made a very serious judgment, so the process clearly could not be abused for political purposes?

[Michael Ellis]

It is important to remember that there is the issue of fear of arrest, as well as arrest itself. If someone were to say to anyone in this House, “There’s a prospect of your being arrested should you enter the United States, or France,” they would think very carefully before entering those countries, even if they knew there were no grounds for any allegations and they were entirely innocent. They would not put themselves through the hassle.

[Mark Durkan]

Can the hon. Gentleman therefore tell us how this clause removes that fear? What signal will people have that the Director of Public Prosecutions would not entertain any such warrant?

[Michael Ellis]

There seems to be a fear, including in apparently authoritative newspapers, that the provision will grant immunity from prosecution, but all it does is raise the test to the same level as for prosecutions that occur by the thousands per week in this country. Whenever there is an allegation against an individual—whether for murder, shoplifting or anything in between—the Crown Prosecution Service has to consider two tests: whether it is in the public interest to proceed, and whether there is a realistic prospect of conviction. No one suggests that the need to consider whether there is a realistic prospect of conviction in those contexts in effect means immunity from prosecution for everybody, and that is all that will be applying here.