McDowell under fire for rushing through bill on extradition

JUSTICE Minister Michael McDowell was criticised yesterday for rushing through legislation which will have profound implications for the rights of individuals in relation to extradition.

The European Arrest Warrant Bill 2003 was introduced in the Dáil last Friday and has to be finished by Thursday the day after World Human Rights Day.

It will then become law by Christmas.

The controversial bill will remove the position of the High Court in determining whether a person should be extradited to another EU country for trial.

"All extradition arrangements, which have been hammered out tortuously over the years, are being abolished and we're doing it with a gun to our heads," said Labour justice spokesman Joe Costello.

Under the bill, an EU member State court can issue an arrest warrant for a citizen of another member country and request his or her transfer without an extradition hearing.

Mr Costello said the minister was guillotining the bill tomorrow at committee stage and guillotining it again for the report and the final stage on Thursday.

He said Irish courts will not know what happens to a citizen following extradition.

"We won't know the conditions of imprisonment. Quite a number of these States are relatively new to democracy," he said.

The Irish Council for Civil Liberties said it was angry, but not surprised, that the bill was being guillotined.

ICCL director Aisling Reidy said Irish courts had a long history in extradition law.

"The courts ensured there were safeguards; that the person would get a fair trial and that the grounds for trial were established. They won't get a chance to review that now."

She also criticised provisions in the bill whereby someone could be extradited for an offence, which was not a crime in Ireland.

The Human Rights Commission said the bill was a "radical overhaul" of extradition law and marked a serious erosion of individual rights.

"We continue to be concerned that despite safeguards the operation of the Arrest Warrant system could greatly diminish the role of the courts in vindicating the rights of requested persons."

The HRC said the Framework Document was based on the "questionable presumption that there is effective and equivalent protection of accused persons' rights in all member states."

Mr McDowell said the Government was obliged to bring in legislation giving effect to the warrant.

He said safeguards would ensure people could not be extradited if there were grounds for believing the person was being prosecuted for discriminatory reasons or where there was a serious risk of the death penalty or torture.

The minister was initially opposed to the European Arrest Warrant but was a minority among EU justice ministers, who were acting in the wake of the terrorist attacks on the US on September 11.