Mr. Kevin McMeel:

I am happy to deal with two of those questions regarding co-operation from a State in which the offence took place.

In a general context, we have dealt with corruption cases in Thailand and Nigeria in the last six to eight years. We have been successful in those cases without the co-operation of the state in which the corruption occurred. That was not because the state was unco-operative, but because we were able to get the evidence from elsewhere, from other international law enforcement partners. I think the US authorities assisted in providing evidence in both those cases. We were able to present that to the High Court to seize assets situated in this country that were the proceeds of corruption in the two jurisdictions I referred to.

This is part of the point we are trying to make. Regarding the legislation as currently enacted, we had corruption in the example I gave. Corruption is recognised as a criminal offence in Nigeria and Thailand. Corruption is recognised as an offence, I would suspect, in virtually every jurisdiction we are seeking to target. The question as to whether a particular act is recognised as corruption in a country is of little consequence in the High Court. In the Magnitsky case, the case which brought about this whole affair, my understanding is that there was corruption which led to the generation of approximately $230 million worth of assets and that it was not recognised as an act of corruption in the jurisdiction in which it occurred. In that case, under our current legislation, if there were assets in this jurisdiction which were identifiable and if we had evidence of corruption, we would still be able to seize and confiscate those assets, provided we had enough evidence to convince, on the balance of probabilities, the High Court that they were, in fact, the proceeds of that corruption. Whether a gross human rights abuse occurred in connection with that corruption, or otherwise, would be immaterial because both would be recognised as a criminal offence in this jurisdiction and in the jurisdiction in which the offence occurred, although I recognise that the specific offence may not be recognised as having been an offence of corruption in the jurisdiction in which it occurred.

Co-operation is important, but it is not necessarily that important in the jurisdiction in which an offence occurred, provided the offence is an offence in the jurisdiction in which it occurred. This Bill does not actually help us in that scenario. The difference between the provisions of the 2012 Magnitsky Act in the US and the one we are dealing with here is as highlighted in the submission. One is concerned with political sanctions and the other is legislation in the realm of the civil law, but it straddles the criminal law as well. We must show an Irish court before a judge, and convince that judge, that the proceeds in a case are the proceeds of criminal conduct, whatever the definition of that criminal conduct might be.