Extradition from Canada to Germany—Karlheinz Schreiber Update

Nearly a year ago, we mentioned that Karlheinz Schreiber had been fighting his extradition from Canada to Germany for more than six years. If you recall, he is facing German fraud, bribery, and tax evasion charges, based on his alleged role in a campaign finance scandal involving former German chancellor Helmut Kohl.

Canada’s Supreme Court, it turns out, has “declined without comment to hear an appeal by [Mr.] Schreiber.”^[1] Mr. Schreiber had filed an application for leave to appeal the extradition order in the lower courts, and the terse, one-page ruling simply said that the application was dismissed.^[2]

This does not mean, however, that his extradition is imminent. “When Canada’s Conservative government took power in early 2006, [Mr.] Schreiber’s lawyers asked the new minister of justice, Vic Toews, to reconsider the extradition order. [Minister] Toews endorsed [the] extradition, but [Mr.] Schreiber has asked an Ontario court to review that decision.”^[3]

Canada’s Extradition Act of 1999 lays out the powers of the Justice Minister. First, he has the power, within 90 days of the individual’s committal to await surrender, to “personally order that the person be surrendered to the extradition partner.”^[4] He also is given the power to “seek any assurances that [he] considers appropriate from the extradition partner,” or to “subject the surrender to any conditions that [he] considers appropriate.”^[5] If the Minister has conditioned the surrender to certain assurances, he may not execute the order of surrender “until the Minister is satisfied that the assurances are given or the conditions or the conditions agreed to by the extradition partner.”^[6] He may also amend a surrender order at any time before its execution.^[7] Aside from having the power to order the extradition of the individual, he also has the power to refuse extradition if, for example, the extradition “would be unjust or oppressive having regard to all the relevant circumstances” or the extradition was requested for the “purpose of prosecuting or punishing the person by reason of their race, religion, nationality, ethnic origin, language, colour, political opinion, sex, sexual orientation, age, mental or physical disability or status.”^[8] And finally, he must refuse the extradition if the statute of limitations has run, if the offense is a military offense, or if the offense is a political offense.^[9]

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[1] Canada’s Top Court Won’t Block Schreiber Extradition, Reuters (via Yahoo!), Feb. 1, 2007.
[2] Top Court Rejects Schreiber’s Appeal to Quash German Extradition, AFP (via Yahoo!), Feb. 1, 2007.
[3] Reuters, supra note 1.
[4] Extradition Act (1999) c. 18 s. 40(1).
[5] Id. s. 40(3).
[6] Id. s. 40(4).
[7] Id. s. 42.
[8] Id. s. 44(1).
[9] Id. s. 46.