Free Gary McKinnon

The Conservative so called Opposition in the House of Lords caved in to the Labour Government over the Extradition amendments to the Police and Justice Bill, on Tuesday 7th November 2006.

The amendments about taking the USA out of Schedule 2 of the Extradition Act 2003 were lost without a vote.

On the question of legal forum, which the Government have claimed that they will come up with some vague, unspecified non-legally binding (i.e. worthless) advice to prosecutors, the Liberal Democrat peer Lord Kingsland said:

It is plain to us that a forum amendment is needed. Where the United States is an appropriate forum for trial, we should, of course, be willing to extradite to the USA people whom it seeks for trial. But the United States may not be an appropriate forum; for example, where all or most of the alleged criminal acts have happened in the United Kingdom, where the links between the offences and the United States are minimal, where most of the evidence and the witnesses are in the United Kingdom and where the United Kingdom authorities have decided not to prosecute because of insufficiency of evidence. The United States is plainly not an appropriate forum in those circumstances. If that is the case and when it would be unjust and oppressive to order extradition of the defendant, surely a United Kingdom judge, not a prosecutor, should have the power to prevent extradition.

The noble Baroness talked about ensuring that victims of crime in this country get justice. Of course that is right, but is not someone who is extradited to the United States unjustly himself a victim? Has he had the justice which he deserves? We believe that he has not.

The forum amendment will be entirely consistent with the Council of Europe Convention on Extradition and with the framework decision that set up the European arrest warrant. It is right that the amendment should not apply only to the United States but should extend to all countries, as it will, if passed. Do we not want to protect our people from unjust extradition not only to the USA, but to Albania and Azerbaijan, whose legal systems are far inferior to those of the USA?

Who could possibly disagree with this ?

The answer is the Labour Government and the feeble Conservative Opposition who mostly abstained , with the honourable exceptions of people like Lord Tebbit and Lord Onslow, who voted with the Liberal Democrats..

The legal forum amendments were lost by Contents: 96 to Not-Contents: 174.

The shoddy Police and Justice Bill will now get its Royal Assent and pass into law by the end of the week, and, shamefully, the uniquely unfair and unjust USA-UK extradition arrangements will continue.