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Posted on 15th November, 2006
President H.H. Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan has issued federal law
No (39) for 2006 dealing with international judicial cooperation on
criminal matters. The 80-article legislation spells out terms and cases
regarding extradition of convicted persons, and belongings to a third
party country and procedures to be followed before the public
prosecution and referral to court.
The law also covers aspects of judicial assistance, immunity of
witnesses and experts before foreign judiciary and mechanisms of
executing penalties.
According to the law, judicial authorities in the country may cooperate
with their foreign counterpart on criminal issues, on the basis of
reciprocal treatment.
This law, however, does not constitute any right to any country to claim
proceeding in any international judicial cooperation on criminal
matters.
As for extradition of persons and properties, the law provides for
extraditing defendants or convicted persons to the foreign judicial
authority to be interrogated, standing partial trial or serving
sentences.
Article 7 of the law stipulates that extradition could only be made if
that the crime committed is punishable in that country by only
Incarceration for one year or more, that the remaining sentence to be
served is not less than six months and that the type of the crime
committed is publishable in both countries, irrespective of the crime
description by each country.
Article 9 sets out conditions under which extradition request is denied.
According to the article, an accused may not be extradited if he/she is
a citizen of the country or if the crime committed is of political
nature. Political crimes, however, do not include terrorism, war crimes,
annihilation, insulting head of state of family members, insulting the
prime minister or all persons under international protection and
sabotaging the country's public installations or interests.
The accused may also not be extradited if it was proved that the
extradition request was made for reasons relating to one's ethnic or
religious background, nationality or political views.
It is also denied if the accused was acquitted for the same crime in a
previous trial or fully served the sentence, if a fair trial for the
same crime was conducted by one of the country's courts, if the case was
dropped because time limit had elapsed or if it is suspected that the
accused will be subject to inhumane treatment.
Article 10 stipulates that if the accused is under trial in the country
for another crime, the extradition shall be stayed until the trial is
over.
The law grants the attorney general the right to order detention of the
accused, based on a warrant from foreign country. The accused shall not
be detained for more than 15 days. According to the law, the convicted
person may be subject to public amnesty but not special amnesty, parole
or any other type of amnesty without approval from the country in which
he/she was convicted.
The law shall be published in the official gazette and shall go into
effect as of the date of publishing. (Emirates News Agency, WAM)
Return to Main Page: The Extradition Treaties
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