An arrest warrant gives police authority to arrest a person. But what happens when that person is believed to be inside somebody else’s home? This is what new changes to extradition warrants were trying to address. An extradition warrant is an arrest warrant for the purpose of returning someone to a different country for criminal prosecution.
Since August this year, police executing certain extradition warrants can enter premises where they reasonably believe the wanted person is located, using necessary and reasonable force. A premises might be a house, hotel room or vehicle. It does not have to belong to the person named on the warrant.
The change closes a fairly obvious gap in the law. The Australian Federal Police told a Senate inquiry that, unlike ordinary federal arrest law, the Extradition Act gave officers no express power to enter premises and use reasonable force. Police could have authority to arrest someone, know where they are, and still find themselves standing outside the door, unable to enter.
Giving them power to open it makes sense. The more difficult question is whose door it might be.
A magistrate does not separately approve entry to a particular address. A police officer instead needs reasonable grounds to believe the wanted person is there. That might be their own home. It might also be their girlfriend’s apartment, their parents' house or a mate’s hotel room. And because this is extradition law, the person police are looking for may be facing prosecution overseas and have no conviction at all.
Police ordinarily have to announce themselves and give occupants an opportunity to let them in. Force must be necessary and reasonable, but police can enter immediately in certain circumstances involving safety or the risk of frustrating the arrest. Night entry also has exceptions.
The government acknowledged that these powers engage the right to privacy. Its position is that the restrictions make the interference reasonable and proportionate. Perhaps they do. The problem is that 'reasonable' will often be much easier to assess after the event. An officer can have perfectly reasonable grounds to believe someone is behind a door and still be wrong.
Parliament has at least left itself an opportunity to find out the answers to some of these questions.
A Senate committee must begin reviewing the extradition amendments within two years, including their unintended consequences. It should ask how often police entered homes belonging to people who were not the subject of the warrant, how often force was used, and how often the person they were looking for wasn’t actually there.
Police needed a workable way to execute these extradition warrants.
But the inconvenience in the old law fell on police. Some of the risk in the new law falls on everyone else.
A magistrate does not separately approve entry to a particular address. A police officer instead needs reasonable grounds to believe the wanted person is there. That might be their own home. It might also be their girlfriend’s apartment, their parents' house or a mate’s hotel room. And because this is extradition law, the person police are looking for may be facing prosecution overseas and have no conviction at all.
Police ordinarily have to announce themselves and give occupants an opportunity to let them in. Force must be necessary and reasonable, but police can enter immediately in certain circumstances involving safety or the risk of frustrating the arrest. Night entry also has exceptions.
The government acknowledged that these powers engage the right to privacy. Its position is that the restrictions make the interference reasonable and proportionate. Perhaps they do. The problem is that 'reasonable' will often be much easier to assess after the event. An officer can have perfectly reasonable grounds to believe someone is behind a door and still be wrong.
Parliament has at least left itself an opportunity to find out the answers to some of these questions.
A Senate committee must begin reviewing the extradition amendments within two years, including their unintended consequences. It should ask how often police entered homes belonging to people who were not the subject of the warrant, how often force was used, and how often the person they were looking for wasn’t actually there.
Police needed a workable way to execute these extradition warrants.
But the inconvenience in the old law fell on police. Some of the risk in the new law falls on everyone else.
