Joe Costello (Dublin Central, Labour)

I move amendment No. 8:

In page 4, line 20, after "passing" to insert the following:

", but shall not apply to a sentence imposed before its passing and in circumstances where an application could have been, but prior to such passing was not, made in respect of the person on whom the sentence was imposed pursuant to the Extradition Acts 1965 to 2001 or the European Arrest Warrant Act 2003, or in respect of which such application was made and not granted".

The relevant section in the Act states:

This Act applies in relation to sentences, whether imposed before or after its passing.

I object to the retrospective nature of that blunt, unconditional statement. The Minister might point out that it is not really retrospective in the sense that it will not involve sentencing people retrospectively, which I accept. It will, however render a person liable to being arrested and imprisoned who is now free in the State and might have been for many years, making it potentially unfair. I propose a safeguard, namely that the requesting state which could have sought the extradition of the suspect but failed to do so should not be allowed to reactivate an application if it failed to pursue it prior to the legislation going through. If an application were lying dormant for years, it should not now be activated.

In a case where extradition was sought and not granted, that too should be outside the remit of this Bill. In that sense the Bill should not be retrospective to cover a situation where extradition proceedings were entered into, but failed. This could be a means of trawling in an area where the situation had been dealt with, perhaps by extradition legislation, where the opportunity existed to seek someone's return to the country but was not acted on and now it could be activated. That is unfair and some protection is required in the area, particularly since the abolition of the political offence exception. In those circumstances we could create anomalies and difficulties, and the legislation would probably benefit from the type of amendment I propose.

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