JOHN HUMPHRYS: As I say the Home Secretary Jack Straw is with me, good afternoon Mr Straw. JACK STRAW MP: Good afternoon. HUMPHRYS: You want us to recognise the laws that apply in other countries and vice versa. But isn't that a bit dangerous. Would it not be more sensible to adopt common European laws in these areas so then we could all agree that they were the right ones and we'd have no problem, given that we could all agree on anything, of course. STRAW: Well, that's part of the problem about trying to get agreement within the European Union to establish a new jurisprudential system to cover the whole of Europe would be an extraordinary task and it would not only be extraordinary and take decades, because legal systems are deeply embedded in the national and political cultures as well as constitutions of countries and typically have transcended national upheavals. I mean the French legal system goes way back to way beyond the Eighteenth Century French Revolution and that's true of most other countries. But it's unnecessary to go down this road. If you take the union of which we have been part for getting on for getting on for three hundred years, which is the union of the United Kingdom, Scotland has an entirely separate legal system, as an English common lawyer, I can tell you that the system in Ireland, in America, has much greater similarities with the English system than the Scottish system, which is related to the continent, and lawyers in Scotland used to train in Leiden in Holland rather than in Scotland. Now, despite those differences which we have honoured and respected, there is real co-operation between the legal and criminal justice systems of Scotland and the rest of the United Kingdom and it's that that we want to achieve across the rest of Europe. It's a much more effective way of doing things, it goes with the grain, it preserves national sovereignty but it says: look, we've ended up with a situation in Europe where we now have free movement of goods, we've got free movement of people, the result of that is that we have very free movement of criminals and a large amount of local crime, disorganised crime if you like has its origins in international European organised crime. We need to be able to have our institutions catch up with these criminals and then overtake them. The way to do it is by this kind of mutual recognition and co-operation that we are laying out at Tampere. HUMPHRYS: And the way you will do, is to make it easier with this Euro warrant as it's going to be called, perhaps, to arrest people anywhere in Europe so that I could be arrested here on the behest, at the behest of the French Police or whatever, instead of at the moment, the extradition procedure that we have. The Euro warrant can be executed immediately, there are dangers as far as our civil liberties are concerned here. STRAW: We would only do that, and at the moment this is an idea that we're putting forward after many years and of course.. HUMPHRYS: But you approve of it, I mean you approve of the principle... STRAW: ..the principle and indeed the principle was accepted many years ago when the European Convention on Extradition was established because under the European Convention on Extradition, as opposed to extradition with other countries..non-European countries, all European countries have accepted that there is no requirement to go into, whether there is a prima facie case, all that has to be established, although the procedure is extremely long and torturous, what you have to establish, however, is that the charge is one which is recognised in both countries, in the despatching and requesting country, and that it is not a political crime and that the person in the dock is the person who is named on the warrant. So those are the three things that have to be established. Under the Euro warrant proposal, obviously there is a key issue of identity, have we arrested the right person. What we are trying to achieve, is a situation that applies anywhere in practice for ninety-nine per cent of crimes, where there is a crime of theft in France or Germany and it's parallel with crimes of theft here. So, getting into the rather torturous technical territory of dual criminality, we want to dispose of. And on the issue of political crimes, I mean that rule was established when, as was the rather Nineteenth Century procedure of extradition, when European countries were typically at war with each other every twenty or thirty years, so we want to remove that. But, John, if you take what I regard as very serious points made by people like Stephen Jakobi, from Fair Trials Abroad, about what would be the rights and the case which was obviously very harrowing for those concerned of the woman who was arrested and detained for seven months in Belgium, if you had a system of Euro warrants, then you could indeed and we would be arguing for this, ensure that people were bailed in their own country.. HUMPHRYS: ...you couldn't tell a French court that that woman, or a Belgium court, that that woman should have bail, that's the whole point, let's have a Euro bail system.. STRAW: Well it would be backed by bail. One of the things that.. HUMPHRYS: ...but it wouldn't be.. STRAW: ..let me make this point by the way, that..which is one of the things that Fair Trials Abroad run by Stephen Jakobi, is concerned about, is a very large number of nationals abroad who are held in custody rather than on bail.. HUMPHRYS: ..disproportionate.. STRAW: ..disproportionate yeah, and that is a consequence of the current system. So, there are advantages for those who are accused of crimes from this system that we are proposing as well as huge advantages for the citizens and the victims.. HUMPHRYS: ..only if there is a Euro bail, as well as a Euro warrant, is that what you are saying, that there should be. STRAW: ..and we would also, of course you look at the bail requirements so that bail could be available on similar terms to those available nationally.. HUMPHRYS: ..but that would need to be institutionalised.. STRAW: ..of course it would, no-one's arguing about that. HUMPHRYS: No, no I'm trying to be clear about that, because I knew that you were in favour of a Euro warrant, I wasn't sure that you were in favour of Euro bail. STRAW: You also, and this is some years down the track, let me say, you also have to ensure that there are agreed requirements for the release of people, if they are arrested and no charge follows. Now, our rules in the United Kingdom are at the top end of protecting the rights of the suspect. In other countries they may keep people arrested for much longer without charge and we would have to be satisfied about that. But can I just say this, what we've got to do here all the time, is to seek to balance the entirely legitimate civil rights of those who are arrested, of suspects and they are very important because they can face years of incarceration, with however the equally important rights of victims and law abiding citizens against particularly organised criminals. And we can't carry on with a system where judicial co-operation is hampered by rules that go back to the Nineteenth Century. HUMPHRYS: Right, so just to be quite clear about it, you want these changes to come about, not just Euro Warrants, but a system of Euro Bail as well, that's your view at the moment. STRAW: Yes, and more importantly and more immediately what we want is much more effective and swifter co-operation in both the other aspects of the pre-trial process and the post-trial process. At the moment, when police are seeking evidence in other European Union countries, they have to issue what's called a Commission, a rogatoire and that's a very cumbersome procedure. To speed up the collection of evidence is very very important, we want to see a change which again would help us enormously and help European citizens enormously, by which other European countries sweep away this very outdated rule preventing the extradition of their nationals. Now we do extradite our nationals, most European countries do not. That's wrong - because the easiest site for there to be a trial is the site where the crime took place and so the other European countries go in for this rather artificial system where they seek to try people in a different country and it doesn't work very well. HUMPHRYS: Asylum and immigration, you've agreed as I understand again, correct me if I am wrong, that there should be common rules here. Now that's going to be a problem isn't it, because some European countries, notably Germany and France, are very much tougher than we are. STRAW: Well, the overall common rule is not something we have agreed, are established by the 1951 Convention on Refugees, to which each Member State in the European Union has signed up, and that's where...... HUMPHRYS: .......but we're proposing to go beyond that.... STRAW: .......no, just let me make this clear. That's where the basic obligation arises. Under the Amsterdam Treaty, some aspects of asylum and immigration, which are currently what's called the Third Pillar, are moved to the First Pillar of the European Treaty and I'll tell you what those are because I've got into this Euro jargon, and it's a very important difference. The Third Pillar is basically where there is co-operation but no European Law overrides what National States are doing, the First Pillar is where you can have European Law overriding what National States are doing, but critically in this area it has to be done by unanimity. Now, we've got a situation where certainly if we went down the Conservative road we would end up with the worst of all worlds which is essentially the situation we inherited. They, you have to have co-operation between different European States. All the people who come into this country claiming asylum who've come by land, have come through other European Countries. The Conservatives in 1990 signed up to a thing called the Dublin Convention, supposed to ensure that there is proper co-operation between different European States, failed to follow it through, that's one of the reasons why we have had problems in ensuring that people who are refused asylum are despatched abroad. We are trying to clean all that up and so increased co-operation is important. The other problem we have at the moment is that for good or ill, our courts interpret our obligations under the 1951 Convention to a much more liberal degree than do almost any other European country. So that can make it much more difficult to ....... HUMPHRYS: That's exactly the problem, isn't it? STRAW: Well, I think it's a problem because other European countries all signed up to this Convention, they're all signed up critically to the European Convention on Human Rights, which even where an asylum claim has been refused prevents a country from returning someone to a point where they can face torture or persecution. So to have what would amount to a common interpretation agreed, not by the ECJ but by the European States, a common interpretation of our obligations under the Refugee Convention would greatly assist us in fighting illegal immigration, whilst making no difference to our acceptance of those who are genuine refugees. HUMPHRYS: So what you are saying it would be better, but only if it was similar to us, in other words, that there would be protection for people from non-state persecutions or state persecution. STRAW: No I am not saying that. One of the reasons why we face such difficulties in this country is because of our over liberal interpretation by our own courts of obligations on the '51 Convention - I'll give you one example which is a case where it has been held that women who are in fear of domestic violence in Pakistan may come under the terms of the 1951 Convention of Refugees. Now, I'm concerned about women in fear of domestic violence in Pakistan, but there is no way it can realistically be argued that that was in contemplation when the 1951 Convention was put in place. Or you've got a situation where under another Court of Appeal case, the Court of Appeal hold in certain circumstances, France and Germany are not ..... countries, something we the Government are resisting, so common agreement here about the obligations would be helpful. We'll always meet our obligations to genuine refugees, but we have along with our European partners, to take firm action to deal with those who are not genuine. HUMPHRYS: Can I look at something that we also should have the right to, whether this something you can be talking about in Finland this week or not, and that is, freedom of information. You've got a Freedom of Information Bill going through at the moment which many people say is far too weak. Now what we have seen this week as a result of the terrible train crash, is that we have not been able to have information that we should have had from the Health and Safety Executive of details of safety breaches because that was covered by existing legislation. Under your new legislation we would still not be entitled to that information. Are you now, in light of what has happened this past week, are you now considering changing that. STRAW: Not in the light of what has happened in the past week. By the way I challenge your assumption that under the original proposals from the government, information which ought to be in the public interest which - whose release would not be prejudicial for example to an accident investigation would not be released, and there's been a great deal of mythology..... HUMPHRYS: But it wasn't. STRAW: Well, our freedom of information legislation is not in force yet. I mean... HUMPHRYS: Quite so. But not - are you telling that if it were in force that the legislation that you are proposing were it in force we would have an absolute right to know if the Health and Safety Executive was concerned about safety on the railways and the details of it? STRAW: Look, John, I'm not telling you that if it were in force this particular piece of paper whose origin I've only seen in the newspapers, and certainly I've not seen the documents would have been released before. I can't say that and neither can you. HUMPHRYS: But you can say whether you believe now, today, knowing what has been going on, whether we should have the right to that information. You surely you can say that. Most people would say: "Of course we should." STRAW: What I can say is that under the bill as drafted, which is the one we published earlier in the summer there is a clear right to obtain information relating to safety unless the release of that information.. HUMPHRYS: ..precisely.. STRAW: ..hang on a second, you haven't heard what I'm about to say - unless the release of that information would endanger the safety of others which sometimes it could. HUMPHRYS: That would not apply in this case. STRAW: Well, it may not apply, but I'm not going to answer a hypothetical question. What we're also doing, just to provide you with further reassurance, and this by the way is not going to come up at Tampere, what we're also doing is taking full account of the two Select Committee reports which have been into our bill and I shall be issuing in the next two or three weeks I hope the government's response to that, because this is a process........ HUMPHRYS: And you will - in a sentence - we're desperately tight for time. In a sentence, you will look at what has happened this past week? STRAW: We are looking at all the representations that we have received in respect of freedom of information. HUMPHRYS: Jack Straw, thank you very much indeed.