"I think one thing is quite clear from the documentation before the court and that is the defendant is identical with a person who was charged with kidnapping and sexual assault as it's now known here or rape in Ohio and that in about 1984 during the course of proceedings to take the defendant to trial he absconded from bail, that bail was revoked, that warrants have been in existence since then for the defendant to be placed to trial. There are some procedural difficulties obviously before the court here in relation to this application for extradition and I think when we look at all of the matters it's not reasonable that the prosecution don't have an opportunity to overcome those difficulties if they can and I think it's a matter where the adjournment should be granted. The matter will be adjourned to 21 August 1996 for mention on that date."
When the proceedings resumed on 21 August 1996, counsel for the DPP read a further affidavit sworn by Ms Tarighati. This affidavit annexed a fresh Warrant to Arrest, dated 8 August 1996. The text of the fresh Warrant to Arrest differs from the earlier warrant, in that it identifies specifically the offences of kidnapping, rape and attempted rape for which the applicant failed to appear and specifies the relevant provisions of the Ohio Revised Code which the applicant is alleged to have violated. Counsel for the applicant in the proceedings before the magistrate did not dispute that the fresh Warrant for Arrest satisfied the requirements of s 19(3)(a) of the Extradition Act. The magistrate accordingly made the order to which I have referred.
The First Submission
Ms Guilfoyle, who appeared on behalf of the applicant, submitted that the magistrate could not be satisfied that the requirement in s 19(2)(a) of the Extradition Act, that the "supporting documents" be produced to the magistrate, had been complied with. This was because the expression "supporting documents" were defined in s 19(3)(a) to mean, relevantly, "a duly authenticated warrant issued by the extradition country for the arrest of the person for the offence". The first Warrant for Arrest did not satisfy the definition in s 19(3)(a), because it did not identify the extradition offences for which extradition of the applicant was sought. It was "fundamental" to the scheme of the Extradition Act that a magistrate could not conduct proceedings to determine whether a person was eligible for surrender if there were in fact no duly authenticated warrant then in existence, satisfying s 19(3)(a) of the Extradition Act. It was implicit, if not explicit, in Ms Guilfoyle's argument that the first Warrant for Arrest did not satisfy par (a)(i) of the definition of "extraditable person" in s 6 of the Extradition Act.
In my opinion, this submission pays insufficient attention to the discrete nature of the successive stages in the extradition process and to the language of s 19 itself. In DPP v Kainhofer, the joint judgment (Brennan CJ, Dawson and McHugh JJ) expressly stated (at 538) that
"the power of a s 19 magistrate does not extend to the reviewing of the satisfaction of the original magistrate or of the opinion of the Attorney-General as to whether the person is an extraditable person. The powers conferred by the Act, other than those conferred by s 21, are administrative in nature. They are exercisable by different repositories in sequence, but none of them authorises the repository of a power to review the exercise of a power by another repository earlier in the sequence."
Their Honours pointed out that the same issue may arise for independent determination by the respective repositories of powers, but on each such occasion the repository must independently determine the issue on which the existence of the power depends.
The magistrate considering whether to issue a provisional arrest warrant under s 12 of the Extradition Act must decide whether he or she is satisfied that the person whose arrest is sought is an "extraditable person". That, in turn, requires the magistrate to consider whether a warrant is in force for the arrest of a person in relation to an offence against the law of a country that the person is accused of having committed: Extradition Act, s 6. The Attorney-General, when deciding whether to issue a s 16 notice, must consider the same question, namely, whether the person the subject of the extradition request, is an extraditable person: s 16(1)(a)(i). Neither the decision to issue a warrant under s 12 of the Extradition Act, nor the Attorney-General's decision to issue a notice under s 16, is reviewable under the Administrative Decisions (Judicial Review) Act 1977 (Cth): see Schedule 1. However, the decision of the Minister to issue a notice under s 16 may be the subject of judicial review under s 39B of the Judiciary Act 1903 (Cth), although the Court has a discretion as to whether it will grant relief: Harris v Attorney-General, at 400-401; DPP v Kainhofer, at 541-542, per Toohey J.
The authority of a magistrate to conduct proceedings under s 19 of the Extradition Act is not dependent on any finding by him or her that the person said to be eligible for extradition is an "extraditable person". The magistrate is obliged to conduct the proceedings if the conditions specified in s 19(1) are met. As was said in the joint judgment in DPP v Kainhofer (at 539):