§ The MINISTER of STATE, HOME OFFICE (Lord Harris of Greenwich)My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a third time.
§ Moved, That the Bill be now read 3a—(Lord Harris of Greenwich.)
§ On Question, Bill read 3a.
§ Lord HARRIS of GREENWICHMy Lords, I beg to move that this Bill do now pass; and I would add my thanks to those Members of the House who participated in our debates on this matter, particularly the noble Baroness, Lady Elles, and the 1061 noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, and others who have, I think, secured some improvement in this rather useful Bill.
§ Moved, That the Bill do now pass.—(Lord Harris of Greenwich.)
§ Baroness ELLESMy Lords, I should like to say from these Benches that we have sought to support this Bill for the simple reason that we believe that it may prove to be an effective contribution to the fight of civilised nations against the very real menace of international terrorism. I should like to add that it is of considerable significance that one of the few remaining countries which have not yet signed the Convention is the Republic of Ireland. Mr. Lynch's good faith is called into question by the refusal of his Government to sign and ratify the Convention. It is not a generally recognised principle of international law that extradition is not granted for political offences. It depends entirely upon the municipal law on extradition. The rules of international law are established by the evidence of, among other elements, the international Convention. This Convention is an important step in the formulation of international law on the behaviour of States in relation to terrorist offenders and the treatment that they should receive. The fact that so many leading Member States of the Council of Europe have signed the Convention is evidence of a consensus of opinion as to the steps to be taken.
Even in those States which have made reservations, as in the case of France, which may prevent the extradition of offenders euphemistically and wrongly labelled political when they are criminal, the Convention provides in Article 7 for the requested State to prosecute the offenders. If the Republic of Ireland claims that it does not harbour offenders, why does it not sign? If it does, it can change its own extradition laws or, indeed, prosecute under the Article that I have already referred to. Therefore, we support the Government and urge them to ratify this Convention as soon as possible after the Royal Assent is given to this Bill. We believe that thereby they will contribute with other Western States to the fight against international terrorism.
§ On Question, Bill passed, and sent to the Commons.