HC Deb 13 March 1865 vol 177 c1537
LORD ROBERT CECIL

I wish, Sir, to put the Question of which I have given notice in a different form from that which I at first intended. I wish to ask Mr. Attorney General, with respect to all the persons who are now in Canada waiting the issue of the Question, Whether they are to be surrendered or not; whether, before they are surrendered under the Extradition Treaty, the legal grounds upon which that surrender is based will be first submitted to the Government at home, and the opinion of the Law Officers taken upon the subject, or whether the discretion of acting upon the Extradition Treaty will be left to the Canadian Executive alone?

THE ATTORNEY GENERAL

This, Sir, is hardly a question which belongs to the legal Department of the Government. These cases are not to be dealt with upon abstract principles, but according to the information which reaches the Government as to each particular case. Generally speaking, the course would be that the Canadian Judges and courts should execute the law in their own territory, and it must be a rare and exceptional state of circumstances which would justify Her Majesty's Government in interfering with the Courts of Law in Canada.