Also, an extradictable crime.
In R v Bow, Justice Browne-Wilkinson wrote:
"In general, a state only exercises criminal jurisdiction over offences which occur within its geographical boundaries. If a person who is alleged to have committed a crime in Spain is found in the United Kingdom, Spain can apply to the United Kingdom to extradite him to Spain. The power to extradite from the United Kingdom for an extradition crime is now contained in the Extradition Act 1989. That Act defines what constitutes an extradition crime. For the purposes of the present case, the most important requirement is that the conduct complained of must constitute a crime under the law both of Spain and of the United Kingdom. This is known as the double criminality rule.
"... the conduct has to be a crime under English law at the conduct date."
In Washington (State) v. Johnson, Justice Wilson of the Supreme Court of Canada adopted these words:
"An extradition crime may broadly be defined as an act of which a person is accused, or has been convicted, of having committed within the jurisdiction of one state that constitutes a crime in that state and in the state where that person is found, and that is mentioned or described in an extradition treaty between those states under a name or description by which it is known in each state.
"This definition can be broken down into several propositions: the act charged must have been committed within the jurisdiction of the demanding state; it must be a crime in the demanding state; it must also be a crime in the requested state; and it must be listed in an extradition treaty between the two states under some name or description by which it is known in each state."
REFERENCES:
- Duhaime, Lloyd, Criminal Law Dictionary
- Duhaime, Lloyd, Extradition Law
- Duhaime, Lloyd, Legal Definition of Extradition
- R v Bow Street Metropolitan Stipendiary Magistate, ex p Pinochet Ugarte (No 3) (1999) 2 All ER 97
- Washington (State) v. Johnson (1988) 1 SCR 327, (1988) 2 WWR 673, 25 BCLR 2d 1, 62 CR 3d 225, 40 CCC 3d 546 and 83 NR 1