BAILII is celebrating 24 years of free online access to the law! Would you consider making a contribution?
No donation is too small. If every visitor before 31 December gives just £1, it will have a significant impact on BAILII's ability to continue providing free access to the law.
Thank you very much for your support!
[Home] [Databases] [World Law] [Multidatabase Search] [Help] [Feedback] | ||
England and Wales High Court (Queen's Bench Division) Decisions |
||
You are here: BAILII >> Databases >> England and Wales High Court (Queen's Bench Division) Decisions >> R. v (1) the Governor of HMP Prison, Brixton [2000] EWHC 226 (QB) (06 October 2000) URL: http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/QB/2000/226.html Cite as: [2000] EWHC 226 (QB) |
[New search] [Help]
QUEEN'S BENCH DIVISION
(DIVISIONAL COURT)
Strand London WC2 |
||
B e f o r e :
-and-
MR JUSTICE BELL
____________________
REGINA | ||
-v- | ||
(1) THE GOVERNOR OF HMP PRISON, BRIXTON | ||
(2) THE GOVERNMENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA | ||
EX PARTE BURUJI KASHAMU |
____________________
190 Fleet Street, London EC4A 2AG
Telephone No: 0171-421 4040/0171-404 1400
Fax No: 0171-831 8838
Official Shorthand Writers to the Court)
MR A COLEMAN (instructed by the Crown Prosecution Service) appeared on behalf of the Respondents.
____________________
Crown Copyright ©
"In the case of a fugitive criminal accused of an extradition crime, if the foreign warrant authorising the arrest of such criminal is duly authenticated, and such evidence is produced as (subject to the provisions of this Schedule) would, according to the law of England and Wales, make a case requiring an answer by the prisoner if the proceedings were for the trial in England and Wales of an information for the crime, the metropolitan magistrate shall commit him to prison, but otherwise shall order him to be discharged."
"...took the copy of the arrest photograph of Kashamu and placed in a DEA form 470, photo identification folder, with seven photographs of black males. These black males had similar facial hair and were the approximate age of Kashamu. This photo lineup was shown to Fillmore. Fillmore provided the following statements: 'It is not jumping out at me, I know what the man looks like.' Fillmore further stated that photograph # 03 looked like a bad photograph of him. Photos # 02, # 04, # 06, # 07 and # 08 did not look like him at all. Fillmore stated that # 05 looked a lot like him but did not look like him. Fillmore ruled out photograph # 01. Fillmore stated that # 05 looked the closest to Alaji."
"The arrest photograph of Kashamu was placed in position # 07 of the photo lineup."
"I asked you in February 1999 whether we needed to disclose this information about the viewing of Fillmore...of the recent (December 1998) photograph of Kashamu in their affidavits attached to our extradition submission. You advised against it because, as you explained, the extradition treaty between the United Kingdom and the United States did not require that such disclosures be made. At some point after the extradition materials were submitted in the London proceeding, I raised this issue again and you again advised against disclosing the information."
"The court, and on appeal this House, can and must consider whether on the material before the magistrate a reasonable magistrate would have been entitled to commit the accused, but neither a court nor this House can retry the case so as to substitute its discretion for that of the magistrate."
"It may sometimes be a nice question whether the fresh evidence goes in truth to the magistrate's jurisdiction but your Lordships have been referred to no reported case in which fresh evidence has been received for the purpose merely of impeaching the magistrate's decision on the facts which were before him. It would therefore in my judgment be contrary to well-established principle for your Lordships to allow the receipt of such evidence in such a case as the present on the ground suggested by Mr Foster. I add that in a case such as the present it is not to be forgotten that the man charged has the additional protection of the discretion of the Secretary of State under section 11 of the Extradition Act, 1870. (That is the predecessor of the 1989 Act.) Although, as I think, your Lordships have no competence to receive fresh evidence with a view to showing that the magistrate's decision might or should have been other than it was, it is no less clear that such fresh evidence may and should be weighed by the Secretary of State in whose power it is, if he thinks proper in the exercise of his discretion, to decline to order the extradition of the person charged."
"Mr Du Cann, however, raises a second, more interesting, point. He says that, even granted that that is true, this evidence is directed not merely to discredit the evidence of witnesses whose evidence was before the magistrate, but to show - and he says it boldly - that the magistrate was deceived, and was imposed upon by the fraudulent conduct of the Government of Israel. He goes on to say that, if he could show that, that would be a ground for this court interfering, as undoubtedly this court can in cases of certiorari. Without deciding the matter, it seems to me that if he could show that, he might well bring himself within the principle that evidence can be given to show that there was no evidence upon which the magistrate could act. If he could show that this warrant had been secured by fraud, as the concealing of evidence or collusion with a witness, then it may well be that this court could interfere. At any rate, for the purposes of this application I will assume that that is so."
"So far as Mr Du Cann's second point is concerned, if it could be shown that a decision had been obtained from the magistrate by fraud or collusion on the part of the requesting power, it would be very difficult to persuade me that habeas corpus could not go."
"Importantly, moreover, in judicial review the court has wider powers of disposal: whereas in habeas corpus the detention is either held unlawful or not, and the applicant accordingly freed or not, on judicial review the matter can be remitted to the justices with whatever directions may be appropriate."
"The great writ of habeas corpus has over the centuries been a flexible remedy adaptable to changing circumstances."
"I therefore conclude that either the learned magistrate did err in law because he got muddled (I regret to have to use that word) as to precisely the nature of Mrs Tomlins' evidence, or that from the way in which he phrased himself it is so unclear as to what he did mean that one cannot be certain that he did not make an error of law. Clearly, if it was an error, it was an error on a material issue. If the matter stopped there that would not, in my judgment, be sufficient to entitle us to say that habeas corpus should issue. What it should lead to is a remission to the Magistrates' Court for a rehearing."
"In my judgment, in those circumstances, there was no evidence which could satisfy the magistrate, as he had to be satisfied, as to a strong or probable presumption of guilt under section 5 of the Act (that is the Fugitive Offenders Act of 1881). This court, however, has been invited to send the case back to the magistrate to look at the documents which have now arrived in this country or, alternatively, this court is invited to look itself at the documents. For my part, I see very great difficulty in taking any such course. These proceedings are not by way of appeal; they are a matter of habeas corpus, and although in Rex v Governor of Brixton, Ex parte Percival and R v Governor of Brixton Prison, Ex parte Shuter the cases were remitted on the question of the jurisdiction of the magistrate based on the nature of the offences, there is no precedent whatever for sending a case back to the magistrate to hear evidence of guilt when no evidence of guilt has yet been tendered.
In R v Governor of Brixton Prison, Ex parte Schtraks it was the applicant who sought to adduce evidence which had not been adduced before the magistrate which pointed to his innocence, and their Lordships firmly refused the application. Lord Hodson said: 'The appellant also relies on certain cases wherein the Crown has been allowed to cure a technicality or fill a lacuna which, while it remained uncorrected or unfilled, would prima facie give the prisoner a right to the writ, although it would avail him little since he could be rearrested and the technicality corrected or the gap in the prosecution's case filled without difficulty. Examples of such cases are,' and he refers to Rex v Governor of Brixton Prison, Ex parte Percival and R v Governor of Brixton Prison, Ex part Shuter. It is said that those words are quite general and that there is power to remit whenever the matter is a matter of curing a technicality. For my part, I do not think that it is a matter of pure technicality. In one sense it is, because it only means the production of authenticated copies of documents. Looked at in another way, it is far from technical because the strict view is that there was no evidence of guilt before the magistrate, and one cannot help seeing that Lord Hodson a few lines further down said: 'I am of the opinion that fresh evidence as to the guilt of the accused cannot properly be received.'
I would not be a party to sending this case back. I do not think we have any power to do so, but in any event I would not do so. I think that requisitioning countries putting the machinery of the Fugitive Offenders Act, 1881, into force should come to this country properly armed with the necessary material. This court certainly does not wish to make difficulties, and I would like to make it plain that I should not have thought that it was necessary for every exhibit to depositions taken in the foreign country or authenticated copies of every exhibit to be brought over to this country, nor indeed all the exhibits in the case of a series of counts of a similar nature; but it does seem to me that when the exhibit in question is the very document, as here, which it is alleged was falsified, that at least the requisitioning country should either send over the document or provide an authenticated copy of it or of the relevant extracts."
"In any proceedings in a criminal cause or matter to be determined before a Divisional Court of the Queens's Bench Division, the court may make a defendant's cost order in favour of the accused."
"any proceedings in a criminal cause or matter are determined before a Divisional Court of The Queen's Bench Division, the court may make a defendant's order in favour of the accused."
"...proceedings includes - (a) proceedings in any court below..."
"As a matter of policy they come out of central funds."