EXTRADITION ACTS AND FUGITIVE OFFENDERS ACT.
SUMMARY
OF
DECIDED
From 1870.
CASES,
EXTRADITION is founded on the broad principle that it is to the interest of civilised communities that crimes, acknowledged as such, should not go unpunished; and it is part of the comity of nations that one State should assist another to bring to justice persons committing such crimes. But in the application of this principle certain matters, such as the conditions upon which, and the class of crimes in respect of which, extradition is to be granted, and the formalities to be observed upon an application for extradition, are primarily matters for the two political powers concerned to arrange in the first instance by treaty; having done this, the next step is by legislative enactment to give them the force of law, and to express in an Act of Parliament the conditions and limitations imposed upon the grant of extradition and the class of crimes to which extradition is to apply. It is to the expression of the legislature in Acts of Parliament alone that judicial tribunals can refer. Acts of Parliament are the sole source, and at the same time the strict limitation, of the judicial functions. We are sitting here as judges only, and have nothing to do with political considerations except so far as they may have been introduced into the language of the Acts which we are called upon to construe.
Per Lord RUSSELL, C.J., In re Arton, L.R. Q.B.D. 1896 (1) 108;
65 L.J.M.C. 23.
509
EXTRADITION ACTS AND FUGITIVE OFFENDERS ACT.
SUMMARY
OF
DECIDED
From 1870.
CASES,
EXTRADITION is founded on the broad principle that it is to the interest of civilised communities that crimes, acknowledged as such, should not go unpunished; and it is part of the couity of nations that one State should assist another to bring to justice persons committing such crimes. But in the application of this principle certain matters, such us the conditions upon which, and the class of crimes in respect of which, extradition is to be granted, and the formalities to be observed upon an application for extradition, are primarily matters for the two political powers concerned to arrange in the first instance by treaty; having done this, the next step is by legislative enactment to give them the force of law, and to express in an Act of Parliament the conditions and limitations imposed upon the grant of extradition and the class of crimes to which extradition is to apply. It is to the expression of the legislature in Acts of Parliament alone that judicial tribunals can refer. Acts of Parliament are the sole source, and at the same time the strict limitation, of the judicial functions. We are sitting here as judges only, and have nothing to do with political considerations except so far as they may have been introduced into the language of the Acts which we are called upon to construe.
Per Lord RUSSELL, C.J., In re Arton, L.R. Q.B.D. 1896 (1) 108;
65 L.J.M.C. 23.
509
No comments yet.
Private notes are available after approval.