A
B
C
D
E
F
G
we think) order of 20 September of this year and we do not
assume that the process of the Malaysian Court will be.
ineffectual.
What may be traceable and ultimately
available at trial is today only a matter for speculation.
This court must not act upon a speculation and,
accordingly, we do no accept the argument upon the missing
documents. If they remain untraced, then their absence
will be for consideration by the court of trial. We will
return to the documents in another context.
We have dismissed Mr. Thomas's factors in regard to
time one by one. If it be objected that we should have
considered them in the aggregate, we answer that in
aggregate we find them no more indicative of success than
we do when they are individually examined.
It is a
It was also argued by Mr. Thomas as we understood him,
that regardless of "circumstances", the elapse of time
between the commission of the offences and today was such
that prejudice to a fair trial should be presumed so that a
return would therefore be unjust. We were not referred to
any authority upon section 11 of the Act of 1989 or its
predecessor which supports such a proposition.
proposition to the effect that the passage of time,
regardless of events occurring during that passage,
enough. This seems to us to be insufficient for the
purposes of section 11(3)(b) which regards time as being
"the cradle of events" ([1978] 1 WLR at p 790E per Lord
Scarman). It is events within the elapsed time which are
H
31