The Economist agrees on extradition this week !

The Economist gets to the same point I was making - ie that "Reciprocity is not the issue; safeguarding the right to a fair trial is" .... (link here- but requires subscription :-( ). The article says further:
"It is a principle of British law that the prosecution has to establish a case or see it chucked out. By agreeing to extradite without proper evidence to America or to Azerbaijan Britain has surrendered a safeguard on which its citizens have every right to rely."

So the Economist has seen fit to weigh in an I couldn't agree more. ( The ever increasing list of previous posts - in reverse order - are here, here, here and here.)

So sending the hapless Baroness Scotland on a trip to Washington to get the US to ratify their version ( which is unequal anyway ) isn't going to deal with the underlying issue is it ? Its just more cynical politics from NuLabour. (And lets not forget her disgraceful performance on Radio 4 last week ).

And none of this will solve the even darker mess this government has signed up to for extradition in Europe ! ( Some more on that soon - but for the moment think midnight express.)

By the way I'm surprised that more Islamic groups in the UK haven't been up in arms - as they claim to represent the section of the population who are most likely to get the bad end of this. (See here for a case that the old system ( aka Justice) managed to avoid ) Credit here to BBC Newsnight which is where I first heard this point.

Tags Extradition, NatWest3, Justice.