I make no suggestion as to whether Christian Brueckner, the convicted rapist suspected of kidnapping and killing Madeleine McCann, is either guilty or not guilty of the latter offence; a court of law is the only place where that should be decided. But I do find the German constitution guilty of naivety and foolishness.
How about denying visas to German citizens with any kind of criminal record until it permits extradition of Brueckner, or subjecting German citizens to extra, irritating checks whenever they arrive on UK shores?
UK police would like to extradition Brueckner so that he can be properly investigated here, with a view to possibly holding a trial in Britain. But there is a large obstacle lying in the way: the German constitution prohibits the extradition of German citizens to any non-EU country. It once applied to all foreign countries, although unsurprisingly the EU found this unacceptable.
There is also a provision whereby German citizens may be deported to the likes of the International Criminal Court. But when it comes to the domestic courts in the 170 or so countries which are not members of the EU, German citizens have absolute protection from being sent to face them. Should Brueckner venture outside Germany, the UK may apply to have him arrested and extradited from whichever country he visits, but so long as he resides in Germany he will be able to live out his life as a suspect in one of the world’s most notorious child abduction cases.
Is the German government, and German citizens, really happy about that? You might think that Germany, of all countries, had good reason to support cross-border justice. There can’t be many Nazis still alive and living in sanctuary in foreign countries, but the honourable work of tracking them down and bringing them to justice relied on the cooperation of countries around the world. By imposing a blanket constitutional ban on the extradition of its own citizens, Germany is putting itself on the side of serious criminality. Post 1945, West Germany, later Germany, has liked to promote itself as an exemplar of human rights. It is anything but. There is no balance between the rights of criminal suspects and the general public; rather absolute observance of the rights of criminals.
Germany is asserting that no other country reaches its own judicial standards and therefore cannot be trusted with the fate of its citizens; except in the case of other EU countries. That means it is in effect saying that Bulgarian courts, for example, are more upstanding than UK, Canadian or Australian ones. That is not an opinion, I think, which would be widely shared outside Germany.
The question is, what should Britain do about this situation? Too often we just stand back in these instances and do nothing. I don’t think that is acceptable. We cannot have a suspect in the Madeleine McCann case, or in any other suspected murder, escaping justice. Clearly, Germany can change its constitution if it wants to; it had to adjust it to allow extradition of its citizens to other EU countries. Britain should push for that.
How about denying visas to German citizens with any kind of criminal record until it permits extradition of Brueckner, or subjecting German citizens to extra, irritating checks whenever they arrive on UK shores? There is justification for doing so: we cannot risk German criminals who have committed crimes here fleeing back to Germany if they are then put beyond the law; we need to be sure that no Germans of criminal intent set foot here.
During the Brexit negotiations, Angela Merkel’s government was all for punitive measures against Britain if we didn’t cede to EU demands. It is time to return the compliment.
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