COURT OF APPEAL FOR ONTARIO
Doherty, Simmons and Tulloch JJ.A.
IN THE MATTER OF the Extradition Act, S.C. 1999, c. 18;
AND IN THE MATTER OF an Application by the United States of America, the Requesting State, for the extradition of Thinh Hung Le
AND IN THE MATTER of an Application for Judicial Review of the decision of the Minister of Justice to surrender the Applicant to the United States;
United States of America
and
The Minister of Justice
Respondents
and
Thinh Hung Le
Applicant
Counsel:
Robin Parker, for the applicant
Richard Kramer, for the respondent the Minister of Justice
Heard: January 28, 2013
On application for judicial review from the Order of Surrender of the Honourable Robert Nicholson, Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada, dated June 13, 2012.
APPEAL BOOK ENDORSEMENT
1The applicant claims that the Minister exceeded his jurisdiction in surrendering the applicant on offences which were not in the Authority to Proceed or the subject of the committal proceedings or in the committal order. In our view, that argument was decided against the appellant in R. v. Fischbacher 2009 SCC 46 and R. v. Barbu, [2001] S.C.C.A. Counsel’s efforts to distinguish those cases, while valiant, were in the end unsuccessful.
2The applicant also challenges the reasonableness of the surrender order in light of the potentially severe penalty faced by the applicant in the U.S. The Minister did consider the potential severity of sentence. Deference is owed to the Minister’s evaluation: see R. v. Lake, 2008 SCC 23, [2008] 1 S.C.R. 761, at para. 47.
3We would not interfere with the Minister’s assessment. The application is dismissed.