The problem of fugitive criminals who evade arrest by escaping to other jurisdictions has been a perennial thorn in the side of law enforcement, especially in light of the various transnational crimes being committed such as money-laundering, drug trafficking and modern slavery. Thus, in order to ensure that countries do not become havens from justice, the process of extradition has been carefully crafted to resolve this issue. This form of international cooperation, elegant in its simplicity, involves fugitive criminals, or those accused of crimes, being sent by their host country back to the country where the crime was allegedly committed in order to face trial or serve their sentence in that jurisdiction. As expressed by the Supreme Court of Canada in Kindler v. Canada (Minister of Justice) and quoted by our Federal Court in Said Mir Bahrami v. Pengarah Penjara Sungai Buloh, Selangor, it is a system “founded on concepts of comity and reciprocity” between different sovereign nations. Typically, this process would take the form of bilateral or multilateral treaties that would then be gazetted as law via orders promulgated under a broader legislative umbrella of extradition law.
This article may be cited as Imaduddin Suhaimi, Extradition: The Keystone in the Administration of Justice for Transnational Crimes [2018] 1 LNS(A) xcv (Current Law Journal: Legal Network Series).
The problem of fugitive criminals who evade arrest by escaping to other jurisdictions has been a perennial thorn in the side of law enforcement, especially in light of the various transnational crimes being committed such as money-laundering, drug trafficking and modern slavery. Thus, in order to ensure that countries do not become havens from justice, the process of extradition has been carefully crafted to resolve this issue. This form of international cooperation, elegant in its simplicity, involves fugitive criminals, or those accused of crimes, being sent by their host country back to the country where the crime was allegedly committed in order to face trial or serve their sentence in that jurisdiction. As expressed by the Supreme Court of Canada in Kindler v. Canada (Minister of Justice) and quoted by our Federal Court in Said Mir Bahrami v. Pengarah Penjara Sungai Buloh, Selangor, it is a system “founded on concepts of comity and reciprocity” between different sovereign nations. Typically, this process would take the form of bilateral or multilateral treaties that would then be gazetted as law via orders promulgated under a broader legislative umbrella of extradition law.
