[2008] UKPC 63

Where English and Scottish police officers had co-operated in investigating, arresting and charging a member of a worldwide paedophile group who lived in Scotland, both police forces were "the competent authority" to "charge" the accused for the purposes of the European Convention on Human Rights 1950 art.6(1). The reasonable time guarantee was a core provision to which the United Kingdom as a whole was a contracting party, and co-operation between the different criminal justice systems in the investigation and prosecution of crime in the UK was expected.

PC (Sc) (Lord Hope of Craighead, Lord Rodger of Earlsferry, Lord Walker of Gestingthorpe, Lord Neuberger of Abbotsbury, Lady Cosgrove)

15/12/2008