TNAG-2955-FCO40-4232-Extradition-cases-from-the-UK-and-France-to-Hong-Kong-Lorrai-1993 — Page 121

4-05-1993 11:53

BRITISH EMBASSY PHRIIE

42 66 91 42

P.06

1

This text fixes the scope for the application of Article 16; it is applicable only in the colonies and other overseas possessions: now, as one knows, the request for extradition was made in France by the British Embassy in Paris and not in a colony or another overseas possession.

It is in vain that the plaintiffs try to argue on the basis of the second paragraph of Article 16; it deals not with the scope of the provision but with the procedure itself.

The second paragraph of Article 16 refers on the one hand to the case when the person whose extradition is requested as flown to a colony or overseas possession of one of the parties; in that case, the request must be made to the Governor or to the principal civil servant of the

colony by the principal conculate agent of the other country in that colony or paccocción.

The Treaty takes into account here only the place of refuge; the "wrongdoer", to quote the Treaty, has come to take refuge in a colony or overseas possession but he can be from

anywhere, and he can come from the mainland.

The second paragraph refers to the case where: "[not official English text] the fugitive has escaped from a colony or overseas possession of the party in whose name the extradition to

requested".

In that case one does not take into account the place of refuge, of one of the contracting parties, but one takes into account the place where the fugitive is coming from and then, in a neighbourly spirit between colonies or overseas possessions, "the Governor or the principal civil servant of that colony or possession" can request the extradition from the "Governor or principal civil servant of the place of refuge".

In the case at stake, one does see that this provision is applicable in neither case, despite the plaintiff's attempt to invoke the second alternative of the second paragraph.

The defendant may have left the territory of Hong-Kong (which is still to show as he is Malaysian and lived in Malaysia); but he has not gone "to a colony or foreign possession" of France to the Governor of which (within the meaning of Article 16) the Governor of Hong Kong could present a request.

France does not have colonies anymore. It has overseas departments and territories.