Background to the Debate

 

I first heard about the Gary McKinnon case after I picked up a copy of the Daily Mail, which was running a campaign to prevent him from being extradited to the UK.  Gary is a Scotsman and lives in North London in Enfield and is a computer genius obsessed with UFOs.

 

Seven years ago, Gary hacked into 97 NASA and US military computers looking for evidence of little green me. Gary was originally caught and arrested by the UK National Hi-Tech Crime United.  The UK police force have thus far failed to charge him because he was later indicted by the United States who have since sought to extradite him.

 

Gary and his legal team have launched a series of appeals against the extradition demands and proceedings were in progress yesterday as I went down to Parliament. 

I had read on Tuesday 14th July in the Daily Mail that Opposition Leader David Cameron had ordered a motion related to the case to be proposed, and the motion was tabled for the following afternoon as part of the Opposition Day.

 

I took as many notes as I could on the the progress of the debate and I will try to relate as far as possible just what went down.  MPs in the debate had a tendency to speak long sentences with multiple clauses really quickly.  This did not make taking notes easy but I will be as factually accurate as I can with the notes I made.  I actually quite enjoyed watching the debate and seeing in full exactly what goes in Parliament.  The formality and vigorous oratorical style of the speakers really impressed me.  

 

Having said that, I was much angered by some of what was being said, not to mention the eventual outcome of the debate itself.

 

The motion as worded in Parliament Order of Business was:

 

"That this House expresses its very great concern that the Extradiction Act 2003 is being undermined by a series of high profile cases that are jeopardising confidence in the extradition system; and calls on the Government to hold immediately a review of the Act with a view to reforming it at the earliest opportunity to deal with the issues of public concern."

 

The Government, as they're permitted to do, put forward amendments to David Cameron's proposed motion that upheld the Extradition Act as it stood.  Nick Clegg of the Liberal Democrats led an addition to the original motion that pointed out the basic inequalities of the Treaty.  The Deputy Speaker who chaired the debate would at the end call for a vote on the Government's amendment to the motion.

 

Leading the debate from the Opposition side was the Shadow Home Secretary Chris Grayling, and he was assisted in on the front bench by his colleague Dominic Grieve.  He was assisted on the backbenches by Mr Gummer and MP for Enfield Mr Burrowes, who is Gary McKinnon's MP.  Other MPs from the main Opposition Party the Conservatives, as well as the Liberal Democrats, were also present and weighed in with their remarks.

 

Opposing the motion was Home Secretary Alan Johnson, and he was assisted by MPs Mr Hanson and Mr Macshane among others.  MP Keith Vaz was a Government MP who was sympathetic to the Opposition's motion and agreed with it's principles.

 

THE DEBATE

 

Chris Grayling kicked off the debate, setting out the motion and questions for the Home Secretary.  It was made clear that although the debate could refer to the McKinnon case, it could not discuss it in depth as the case was subject to further legal proceedings taking place that day.  Yet nevertheless the case had raised the need for the current system to be reviewed and hoped that through the motion to do so, it would instil in the government the will for change.

 

Grayling said the current arrangements did not meet reciprocity and fairness standards and asked if the Home Secretary would open such a review.  He expressed fury that the Government had not responded so far to the issues raised in the public domain.  The workings of extradition were not consistent with the principles discussed at the time.

 

He indicated that people charged with cyber-crimes, people hacking into computers in other countries, had been tried here.  Why was it not the case with this Treaty?  His final point was on the treaty's inequality - the US are not required to provide prima facie evidence when extraditing criminals, but the UK is when extraditing people from the US.

 

Alan Johnson rose and switched the main discussion from the Extradition Treaty to the Extradition Act 2003, 'mixing and matching' as he was later accused of doing.  He discussed the 2002 debate on the Act and rebutted an Opposition charge the Act had been passed in response to 9/11 (it been put forward in March 2001, several months before) in an attempt to prove that the Act and thus the Treaty were not as lopsided as the Opposition tried to suggest.  More US citizens were extradited to the UK in recent years and he referred to case of the Natwest Three, who were extradited from the UK to the US.  They were tried, convicted and treated fairly.  He insisted that, in the McKinnon case, the Government had no choice but to go along with extradition.

 

Johnson was asked if safeguards were in place for Mr McKinnon's Asperger's Syndrome and he insisted that there was, citing multiple opportunities for appeal including the European Court of Human Rights.

 

Chris Huhne of the Liberal Democrats rose to make an intervention, refuting Johnson's insistence of fairness and saying that the Conservative motion did not go far enough.  What he found objectionable was that the Treaty was never scrutinised in Parliament and the US Senate never ratified it.  He also pointed out the US Executive Branch decides the nature of a crime committed by someone set to be extradited, whereas in the UK it is the Judiciary that decides this, another example of the lopsidedness of the Treaty.

 

McKinnon's MP Mr David Burrowes rose and accused Mr Johnson of evading the issue.  He emphasised Gary's condition and defended his right to justice.  People who have special needs don't get benefits of the justice system and this affected the McKinnon case unfairly.  He pointed out that Johnson had deferred to the Department of Public Prosecutions who had deferred to the United States.

 

As a lawyer with an interest in criminal law, he said that the Government had not given enough attention to due process and he thought the US prosecutors did not have enough evidence to form a case.  He recommended in his speech taking a forum position, that looked at where the offence or "a significant part of the offence was committed in this country" and this would allow the UK judiciary to make a judgement on the matter.  At present such a position was unachievable because all the evidence was in the hands of the United States.  He pointed out the that because of the Daily Mail campaign and public interest the Government had to take action.

 

Burrowes was backed up by fellow Conservative MP John Gummer, who lambasted the Home Secretary, saying he had not adequately prepared for the debate.  Gummer had a personal interest in the debate as he had a constituent who was once extradited to the US state of Texas and then executed.  Gummer personally went over there and pleaded for his former constituents life.  He raged at the Treaty and said the US needed to recognise reciprocity and treat others the way it expected to be treated itself.

 

MP Denis Macshane rose to defend Johnson.  He likened the McKinnon case to the Saunders case, where the defendant claimed he had Alzheimers.  He cited a Los Angeles case where US cited British citizens should be tried in Britain.  He said the rule of law does not have national flags draped over it and that the country should accede to the US if they perceive a threat to their security.

 

MP Mr Shepherd disagreed, stressing the inequality in the Treaty.  Labour MP Keith Vaz, said we had to review the Extradition Act so that cases like Mr McKinnon's can be dealt with.  He said that Alan Johnson and Baroness Scotland (the Attorney General, whom he was consulting), contrary to Mr Johnson's protests, did have the power to intervene.

 

Opposition MP Mr Dominic Grieve carried the point forward with a discussion of the law and talked again about reciprocity.  He said the US legal system had 'onerous qualities'. US prosecutors had the powers to extradite people from other countries suspected of Internet crimes without a decision being made through the judiciaries of those countries.  He attacked the previous comparisons made about Mr McKinnon's condition and stressed that we have an unfair system.

 

David Hanson MP had been assisting Mr Johnson throughout the entire three-hour debate and stood in for him when Johnson took a break from the debate in lobby.  It was Hanson who concluded the debate.  He said a review was impossible and believed the treaty was effective and not imbalanced, and the Government had taken account of Mr McKinnon's condition so no changes should be made to the Treaty or the Extradition Act.  He commended the Government's amendment to the House.

 

Concluding the debate, the Speaker called for a vote on the Government's amendment to the motion.  In the end the votes swung in favour of the Government, which meant no review of the Treaty is going to take place.

 

AFTERMATH

 

I left the Common's viewing gallery in a divided state of mind.  I enjoyed the debate, but was angered at it's outcome.  The points raised about the Treaty and it's giving greater power to the US make clear the nature of our 'special relationship', which has affected so much over recent years, especially regarding Iraq and Afghanistan. 

 

I can only wonder what's going to happen to Gary McKinnon now.  This morning's headlines in the Daily Mail are predictably outraged and no wonder, in my opinion.  I can only hope Gary McKinnon is able to endure whatever ordeal awaits him now...