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R
SIR,
No. 210.
CAPE: GENERAL.
HOME OFFICE to COLONIAL OFFICE.
[Extradition of one Bloesch.]
Royal Courts of Justice,
December 30, 1908.
I AM directed by Mr. Secretary Akers-Douglas to acquaint you, for the information of Mr. Secretary Lyttelton, that he has recently, in connection with the case of one Bloesch, whose extradition from Cape Colony was claimed by the Swiss Government, taken the opinion of the Law Officers of the Crown respecting the power to detain in this country, under a Colonial warrant, a prisoner who is on his way from a British possession to be surrendered to a Foreign Government.
A copy of the case submitted, and of the opinion of the Law Officers thereon, is enclosed herewith.
I am, &c,,
M. D. CHALMERS.
PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
C.O. 8
Reference :-
885
CASE FOR THE OPINION OF THE LAW OFFICERS OF THE CROWN.
One Bloesch, charged with fraud in Switzerland, absconded to Cape Colony. A warrant was taken out in Switzerland for his arrest, and an application for his extra- dition was made by the Swiss Government. Bloesch has not yet been arrested.
The question has been raised whether, if Bloesch is surrendered from Cape Colony on a warrant signed by the Governor of the Colony, and is sent to England for delivery to the Swiss Authorities, he can be lawfully held in custody under the Colonial Governor's warrant while in England, pending his re-shipment to the Continent.
An opinion of the Law Officers in 1887* is submitted herewith, in which they advised that a Canadian warrant of surrender in extradition has no force or effect outside Canadian territory. That opinion, however, turned on the fact that Canada possesses Extradition Acts of its own, and the Imperial Extradition Acts have been suspended within the Dominion by Order in Council of the 28th of December, 1882.
Reference is made to a letter from Mr. Vaughan, one of the Magistrates of Bow Street Police Court, dated 3rd of September, 1887 (of which a copy is attached to the case above referred to), in which he expressed the opinion that "the possessions of the Colonies and the territory of Great Britain were, for the purposes of extradition, intended to be regarded as identical," and that a prisoner surrendered in extradition to a Foreign State by a Colonial Government could therefore be conveyed across England under the Colonial Governor's warrant.
Reference is also made to the last paragraph of Section 11 of the Extradition Act, 1870, which runs as follows:-
It shall be lawful for any person to whom such warrant is directed, and for the person so authorised as aforesaid, to receive, hold in custody, and convey within the jurisdiction of such Foreign State the criminal mentioned in the warrant; and if the criminal escapes out of any custody to which he may be delivered on or in pursuance of such warrant, it shall be lawful to retake him in the same manner as any person accused of any crime against the laws of that part of Her Majesty's dominions to which he escapes may be retaken upon an escape":
and to Section 17, Sub-section (2), of the same Act, which provides :-
(1
(2) No warrant of a Secretary of State shall be required, and all powers vested in or acts authorised or required to be done under this Act by the Police Magistrate
and the Secretary of State, or either of them, in relation to the surrender of a fugitive criminal, may be done by the Governor of the British possession alone."
The effect of these sections would appear to be that a prisoner surrendered to some Foreign Government from the Cape or other Colony in which the Imperial
No. 109 in Vol. IV.
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15 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON
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