Liberty - Protecting civil liberties, promoting human rights

Extradition Watch is our campaign for fairer extradition laws. Extradition is an important part of fighting cross-border crime, but changes in recent years have damaged time-honoured protections against unfair extradition.

The Extradition Act (2003) streamlined the extradition process by side-stepping traditional British justice. ‘Fast-track’ extradition is justice denied.

UPDATE: JULY 2013

Despite much rhetoric from politicians of all stripes on the need to reform our extradition laws, so far we’ve seen little positive change and – worse – a proposal to actually strip away one of the few safeguards we have.

Shockingly, the very provision that allowed Gary McKinnon to remain in the UK is now under attack. The automatic right of appeal against an extradition order is a vital protection that allows people to present all the up-to-date evidence to the High Court and challenge the reasoning of the initial order.

Yet the Government has slipped a clause into the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Bill which would see this right scrapped altogether.

TAKE ACTION - EMAIL YOUR MP NOW

Email your MP today and urge them to drop this clause for good. The fight for fairness starts now.

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• Read Liberty's letter to the Home Secretary regarding the Baker Extradition Review (Nov 2011)
• Liberty's response to the Home Office review of extradition legislation (Dec 2010)
• Liberty's submission on CPS Interim Guidelines on Shared Jurisdiction
  

Why the law needs to change

1. Someone should not be extradited to another country for actions that are not criminal in the UK
2. A basic case should be made to a British court before someone can be sent abroad to face trial in another country
3. If a significant part of the conduct that led to the alleged crime took place in the UK, then a British court should be able to decide if it is in the interests of justice to extradite.

Find out more about extradition and read our case studies to see how these laws affect real people. Read about the case of Eileen Clark.

Flight Warning

We asked our supporters to send us their pictures of our Extradition Watch paper plane (PDF)  to help show support for our campaign and Gary McKinnon's case, have a look at the fantastic photos we received in our Flight Warning gallery. 

Find out about more extradition cases on Friends Extradited.

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