Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I am long enough in this House to remember the tortuous and cumbersome extradition procedure that used to exist prior to the enactment on foot of an EU framework directive of the European arrest warrant legislation. The Minister of State is far too young to remember any of that, but I remember debates in this House and major battles in the courts before criminals could be extradited from here. It was a most welcome innovation, which began to match the pan-European law enforcement capacity with the growing pan-European and transglobal nature of crime. Some colleagues have already referred to that in terms of drugs and other areas of criminality. Like all EU directives, the EU Commission maintains a proper watching brief on the precise nature of each member state's transposition process and subsequent enforcement. The Minister of State has told us that the Commission had issues with our transposition and had commenced infringement proceedings against us. I have said in regard to several other matters, in particular in the justice area, that Ireland is often very slow in bringing legislation to transpose directives in a timely fashion into this House. It is often when a long-standing deadline is approaching or in cases where legal proceedings have been commenced in the European Court of Justice that legislation is presented here and we are presented with a deadline, as if somehow we have to act with a degree of alacrity when we should have been given proper time.

We begin the debate with that in mind. The ministerial and departmental advice in the briefing note we got is that the Oireachtas should act with expedition to avoid financial penalties being imposed on the State. I might suggest that the Department moves with greater haste to avoid putting the National Parliament into that position in the first place. I have said that about other issues. Respect is needed for the Parliament. We need adequate time and preparation. Pre-legislative scrutiny was completed during the course of last year, yet the Bill has been brought to the House on the basis that we will do it quickly.

In truth, as the Minister outlined in some technical detail, most of the changes that are to be brought about are procedural and technical in nature. They do not make easy reading either, because we are reading across existing legislation and amending legislation in that regard is often confusing. I am all in favour of consolidating legislation so that any practitioner or citizen would be able to read the law in a single volume rather than have to read it across various amending Acts.

As the Minister of State has set out, the issues, which include the confirmation of time limits for the making of decisions and for the surrender of persons on foot of arrest warrants, all seem very reasonable and proper. The Bill provides for close co-operation and communication with the issuing state and with Eurojust, where that is appropriate and necessary, seems straightforward.

The measure on introducing clarification of the circumstances in which an arrest warrant may be refused by the High Court is a matter of implementing practice. Providing for the consent from a third country before approving the surrender of a person who has been extradited here from that country is again proper procedure that is in accordance with the spirit and detail of the directive.

Another measure relates to procedural rules for the requested person, where the arrest warrant relates to a conviction imposed on the requesting state in the absence of the requested person. Again, these are codifying procedural rules that have arisen. These are matters that clearly need to be codified in our law to accord with the generality of the procedures applied across member states of the European Union and of the requirements of the directive itself.

One issue struck me, and I would welcome clarity from the Minister of State regarding it. He referred to the rule of specialty in regard to section 15. The explanatory memorandum states:

This rule is codified in international extradition treaties and states that an extradited person shall not be proceeded against, sentenced, detained or re-extradited in the requesting state for any offence committed before surrender other than the offence for which extradition was granted.

On the face of it, that seems most reasonable. One applies for a particular offence, and it can only proceed if the extradition is granted for that offence. How does it work if, for example, somebody was charged and extradited for a brutal rape and, subsequent to the extradition, the victim died and the issue then became murder? Could the warrant be subsequently amended to deal with that more serious issue, or could the person only be tried for the offence specified on the extradition warrant, that is, aggravated rape and assault? That is not clear to me and the Minister of State might provide clarity to the House in regard to it when he makes his Second Stage summation.

It is essential that we ensure we have robust mechanisms in place in every EU state so that those who commit serious crimes can be pursued across state boundaries. Too often, we have seen major criminal gangs operate in a multiplicity of states. The godfather, or now occasionally the godmother, of a criminal gang lives in one state and operates in a multiplicity of other states across the European Union. We must have the same freedom of movement to deal with the situation from a law enforcement perspective as the criminals have in operating from various jurisdictions. The idea of a common European extradition warrant is something that needs constantly to be updated to keep track of developments. The development of this legislation is extremely important. One of the issues that arose from our co-ordinated attempts over the past 20 years and more to deal with criminal gangs, in particular in the multinational drugs area, was the development of the proceeds of crime legislation and the establishment of the Criminal Assets Bureau. In a previous debate, the Minister for Justice described that as perhaps the most important individual criminal justice initiative to impact on crime gangs in this State.

We have amended the proceeds of crime legislation on a number of occasions.

As colleagues have instanced, in recent weeks we have witnessed the unfolding horror of Russian aggression in Ukraine. It is unlike anything we have seen in our lifetimes and something that we thought we had confined to the horrors of the Second World War to see, in various cities across Ukraine but most focused upon Mariupol, the absolute annihilation of a city with no regard at all for the fate of its inhabitants who are experiencing unimaginable horrors as we speak. I mention this because I sought, as the Minister of State knows, to broaden the scope of our proceeds of crime legislation by bringing before the House the Proceeds of Crime (Gross Humans Rights Abuses) Bill, which has passed Second Stage and has been referred to the justice committee. I reference it now because it is important that we are seen to be acting in a very clear and decisive manner regarding those who are self-evidently engaged in gross human rights abuses and that we can, with the same determination and I hope with the same effect, act against them should any of them have assets in this State. I am not saying they have but if they do, we should be able to act against them and seize those assets in the same way we seized the assets, very effectively, of those involved in serious crime, including drug crimes, over the past 20-odd years.

I remember many of the same pushbacks to that legislation. It was said that it was unconstitutional or that we could not seize criminal assets without a criminal conviction because of constitutional protections and all that, but it has worked effectively. It would be a very strong signal. I do not mind if people who are self-evidently tied to gross human rights abuses want to go to an Irish court to get their property back and make their case. Let them defend themselves and their actions in the Irish courts. That is why I ask the Minister of State, and I know he has been very positive about it, to support that legislation and its quick passage through the Houses.

I look at what is happening in other jurisdictions. People have bespoke legislation to deal with the situation now and are fast-tracking it. In Britain, an entire day was spent amending its existing Magnitsky legislation to deal with this. We can do more. If the platform of legislation that I have presented needs to be supplemented, amended or reinforced, I will happily support that 100%, but we need to give a very strong signal of where we stand. On that matter, and I hope the Minister of State will take careful note of what I am about to say because it is something that needs to be brought to the attention of his colleagues, a communication has come my way regarding the operation of sanctions on named Russian persons that we are legally obliged to enforce. I will read the communication that I have. It states:

It is clear sanctioned individuals are hiding money through family members and that the sanctions are being sidestepped. As the individuals in question, that is, the family members, are not sanctioned they could legally challenge withholding payments. Guidance on this matter from Government is urgently required.

I ask the Minister of State to take note of that.

Where there is money in our financial services system that is not in the name of the sanctioned individuals who are named in the orders that are being made throughout the European Union, but their relatives, that allows them to simply sidestep the sanctions in that way. I am saying, in a broad spectrum way, that we need to have much more focus and attention on the significant sums of money that are churning through our financial systems to ensure that we are not in any way aiding and abetting the hiding of the tainted, filthy money of those who are in any way connected with the gross human rights abuses that are unfolding in front of our eyes in Ukraine right now. I ask the Minister of State to take note of that and pass it on to his colleagues, including the Minister for Finance or his Department, and to come back to me or the House regarding what exactly is being done in respect of the friends or family members - and family members were instanced in the communication I received - of named sanctioned individuals who might have resources in this State.

As already stated, the Bill is quite technical. It deals with strengthening, updating and simplifying in many ways the procedures we have that surround the application of extradition right now. I will end as I began by stating that it has come a long way from when we had a torturous and difficult extradition system in this country with repeated court challenges and constant delays so that, in many instances, it proved impossible to extradite out of this jurisdiction people accused of very serious crimes. Having a pan-EU directive, transposed into a common interpretation across all member states, has been an enormous advantage and boon. On behalf of the Labour Party, I am very happy to support this legislation, which addresses issues that have been raised in the application of the European arrest warrant process in our own systems but, more important, the requirements of the Commission as set out in the infringement proceedings over recent days. I certainly hope to give fair wind to its early passage and enactment.

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