Senate debates

Thursday, 3 March 2016

Questions without Notice

Extradition Law: China

2:27 pm

Photo of George BrandisGeorge Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party, Attorney-General) Share this | Hansard source

No, I do not. The reason I do not is that although Australia may have concerns about an aspect of the criminal law and the criminal justice system of another jurisdiction, and we do in relation to China and all death penalty countries, that does not mean that there is no useful role for international crime cooperation. In fact, if Australia refused to engage in international cooperation in the enforcement of the criminal law with any country because we had a misgiving about an aspect of their criminal justice system, our capacity to deal with transnational and cross-border crime would be very significantly curtailed. The way in which we deal with the issue, which you have very properly raised, is that we have exclusions, in particular, in the subject about which you are inquiring, a death penalty exclusion, which we enforce rigorously.

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