Brian Lenihan Jnr (Dublin West, Fianna Fail)

This amendment amends the current text of section 23(1) of the European Arrest Warrant Act, as inserted by section 70 of this Bill. Section 23 deals with the question of onward surrender to a third member state of a person surrendered by Ireland to the first member state. It gives effect to Article 28 of the framework decision.

The essential position under this section is that a person must not be surrendered to another member state without the first executing state consenting to that onward surrender. Subsection (1) of section 23 provides a definition of "offence" in respect of which a person may be subject to onward surrender to another member state.

The new definition simplifies the current definition in section 23(1). It provides that an offence for which the person may be surrendered must be an act that was committed before the person surrendered to the issuing state pursuant to the original or European arrest warrant and that it was for an offence at that date under the law of the member state now seeking his or her surrender. In particular, it guards against any possibility of retrospective penalisation. It prevents a position where the third state might try to pursue a person for an act committed before the original surrender but where that act was not an offence at the time of that person's original surrender but was subsequently criminalised.