If you have watched the news with any regularity throughout your life you have almost certainly heard the phrase extradition, even if you don’t fully understand what it means.
Put simply, extradition as the process of sending a person back to a country where these are facing criminal charges or so they can serve a criminal sentence.
Given that the extradition process involves thousands of individual agreements between different nation states across the globe, the reality is that extradition can be incredibly complex, and it is no surprise agreements can take months or even years to finalise.
What is the purpose of extradition?
The theory behind extradition is that international cooperation is essential for ensuring that criminals face justice and prevents them from simply fleeing the nation to avoid the consequences of their actions.
Unfortunately, as you can probably imagine, arranging extradition treaties between the countries of the world is not always an easy task.
There are thousands of different bilateral and multilateral extradition treaties currently active across the globe, with certain unions such as the European Union making the process slightly simpler in member states.
As of January 2021, the UK is no longer part of the EU, and is therefore responsible with negotiating its own treaties and agreements.
What is the history of extradition in the UK?
Extradition is hardly a new concept in the UK, and there have been instances of individuals being transferred between nations of the UK (England and Scotland in particular) for over 400 years.
The Extradition Act 1870 was the first piece of legislation reflecting anything at all similar to the modern treaties that we see today and allowed for criminals who had committed the most serious of crimes to be extradited officially.
This Act remained the primary piece of legislation governing the extradition process until 1989 when the new Extradition act was introduced.
This Act was later updated in 2003.
Why might someone not be extradited?
There are a number of instances where an extradition request has been rejected by the UK, with the majority of issues involving human rights in the requesting nation.
For example, the UK will not grant extradition requests to the USA, or any other nation for that matter, if the person subject to the request could face the death penalty, as it is considered inhumane in this country.
What should you do if you are facing extradition requests in the UK?
If you are facing an extradition request, you need to act quickly. There is no guarantee that the request will be successful, but the sooner that you find the best extradition lawyer in your area, the better your chances are of it being rejected.
Just because a request ‘should’ be rejected, does NOT mean that it necessarily will be rejected, and this is something that is important to bear in mind.
Do your research properly and make sure that you are confident that whatever criminal lawyer you end up choosing is the best qualified and best placed to represent you properly.