First they abolish double criminality: so that you can only be extradited is what is a crime you are being charged with is also a crime in Britain. Then:
As the European scrutiny committee of the House of Commons noted in its report on the proposed reform: \”[This] is both novel and far-reaching: it gives national courts competence to try a criminal offence that is not prescribed by UK law or, put another way, that the Government has not proposed nor Parliament agreed should be a crime. Instead, jurisdiction comes from the EU Member State that is transferring the proceedings.\” For instance, someone accused of holocaust denial, a crime in Germany and Austria, could be tried for it in an English court even though it is not an offence here.
They\’ll try you in an English court for something which is not a crime in England.
Regular readers might note that I\’ve been saying for some time that we should leave this monstrosity. Can\’t say that this makes me change that opinion.
Oh lord, it’s the Telegraph. It’s impossible nowadays if only looking on the web to tell if it’s an opinion piece or news story – last week we had the news headline ‘more of Britain’s powers surrended to Brussels’, which while not as insane as Janet Daley’s hope for a 1989 style revolution against the EU, would certainly have former editors spinning in their grave. Well not all former editors, I guess it all started with the famous news headline ‘his faith is so strong he is already touching the Lord’.
So you just can’t rely on it, and I think it’s being a bit misleading here as well in not mentioning Article 11, “Double Criminality”:
“A request for transfer of proceedings can be complied with only if the act underlying the request for transfer constitutes an offence under the law of the Member State of the receiving authority”.
Tim adds: No, this isn’t true. There are 21 crimes for which double criminality has been abandoned. Including xenophobia which is not a crime in the UK. Otherwise, why would Gerard Toben have been held on remand for a month while a request for his extradition over holocaust denial was considered?
“it gives national courts competence to try a criminal offence that is not prescribed by UK law”: eh? Double eh, eh? Do they perhaps mean “proscribed”?
And, come to that, what is this “UK law” of which they speak?
And at the same time they’re chipping away at some of last protections, like juries –
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8106590.stm
Of course we all accept that those nasty people like criminals and drug barons (POCA) shouldn’t get away with it, don’t we?
Oh, and Nick Griffin. He must be guilty of something, because we don’t approve of him.
Surely Toben wasn’t a transfer of proceedings, it was to do with extradition?
@5, stop confusing matters with facts. The EUSSR *will* send us all to the gulag quick-time, and anyone who says otherwise is a vegetarian Guardian reader.