EXTRADITION FLAW

Evening Star, Issue 21994, 2 April 1935, Page 1

EXTRADITION FLAW

PRISONERS RELEASED LEGISLATION NECESSARY TO REMEDY DEFECT [Pbr Unites Press Association.] WELLINGTON, April 1. Two prisoners who were subjected to arrest by a Sydney detective on warrant to answer charges of. stealing share scrip must be released, aiid the detective will need to return to Sydney with no prisoners after he has spent over six weeks in the dominion, during which time the prisoners have been in custody. The law governing extradition of prisoners from New Zealand to separate Australian States will need to be altered to overcome a defect which, in the judgment of the Full Bench of the Supreme Court, vitiated the legality of the extradition order. Tho court holds that the warrant of remand is bad, and that a rule absolute for the issue of a writ of habeas corpus should issue as to both Madge Munro and William Campbell, the prisoners concerned. The reason for this decision in brief is that the extradition order was in respect of a crime punishable according to the law of Now South Wales. According to the Fugitive Offenders Act, 1881 (Imperial Legislature), and an Order in Council making the Act applicable, the Commonwealth of Australia is the possession ’to which prisoners may be extradited and the law of the. Commonwealth is _ tho determining factor. The position has arisen because, in fact, there is no law of the Commonwealth of Australia as such, and therefore, in law. prisoners who may have infringed the law of New South Wales, as is alleged in the case of the present prisoners, are not covered by the Imperial Act. as that Act has been made to apply to the Commonwealth of Australia and not specifically to the States of the Commonwealth.