Michael McDowell (Dublin South East, Progressive Democrats)

This is a new creature. Until this law came into effect we had a twin-track approach to extradition issues: the conventional international law of extradition which was a state to state request implemented by courts pursuant to international law agreements; and in regard to the United Kingdom, the Isle of Man, the Channel Islands and other places, there was rendition on warrants, which was a different concept. This was not state to state extradition, it required only that a policeman appear before a court in Ireland, produce a warrant and ask that it be endorsed for execution in this State. That was the arrangement in 1965 and we slowly developed a series of protections around that legislation as it applied to warrants.

In our relations with the United Kingdom for example, the rules of specialty and of proving a substantial case to meet were introduced by statute and dealt with on the basis of a certificate from the Attorney General for England and Wales. Unless the Irish Attorney General intervened that condition was met. Therefore, we have jurisprudence on a specific form of rendition on warrants and international jurisprudence dealing with extradition law.

The question that arose here, and in the minds of the officials in my Department, was how will an Irish court deal with someone raising a point for debate in a court here, and where will it say the onus of proof lies. It was not clear in considering the law on rendition on warrants, or the international law, where the Irish courts would go on the issue. We want to give them guidance so that in general terms to make this system work they do not engage in debate for debate's sake and that they deal only with these issues if substantial cases are raised meriting some strong reason to doubt that the requesting state would comply with its obligations under the framework decision.

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