International transfer of sentenced persons (prisoner transfer scheme; prisoner transfer program) is a system to facilitate social rehabilitation and re-integration of foreign offender(the term ‘sentenced persons’ is used interchangeably with the ...
International transfer of sentenced persons (prisoner transfer scheme; prisoner transfer program) is a system to facilitate social rehabilitation and re-integration of foreign offender(the term ‘sentenced persons’ is used interchangeably with the term ‘offender’) by transferring him back to the country of nationality to serve the remainder of the sentence at home. It helps a sovereign state to extend its protection to criminal offenders imprisoned abroad who cannot be adequately taken care of by the state through the exercise of the right of diplomatic protection, because they violated the criminal law of a foreign state and thereby broke the public order of the latter state. It is considered as most the advanced form of international cooperation in criminal matters. Prisoner transfer scheme preconditions the recognition and enforcement of foreign penal judgments rendered by criminal proceedings in a foreign court.
The prisoner transfer schemes have evolved in order to ease special hardships of foreign prisoners, such as language barriers, cultural differences, and emotional alienation from his family and friends arising from his imprisonment in penitentiary facilities in foreign nations. Unlike other kinds of judicial assistance or judicial cooperation in criminal matters, the prisoner transfer scheme focuses on the welfare and interests of the offender rather than the public interests of sovereign states in suppressing trans-boundary crimes. It has a humanitarian nature in that it directly benefits the offender more than the law enforcement authority of a state.
Under current international penal transfer schemes, in order for the transfer of sentenced persons to take place, certain conditions should be fulfilled either under a treaty or domestic legislation. For example, the most commonly accepted treaty regime across the world, the Council of Europe Convention on the Transfer of Sentenced Persons provides for the conditions for transfer. Under Article 3 of the Convention, a sentenced person may be transferred only on the following conditions: a) if that person is a national of the administering state, b) if the judgment is final, c) if the sentenced person still has at least six months of the sentence to serve or if the sentence is indeterminate, d) if the transfer is consented to by the sentenced person or, where in view of his age or physical or mental condition one of the two States considers it necessary, by the sentenced person''''s legal representative, e) if the acts or omissions on account of which the sentence has been imposed constitute a criminal offence according to the law of the administering State or would constitute a criminal offence if committed on its territory, and f) if the sentencing and administering States agree to the transfer.
Among the six conditions, the most critical and prevailing condition is that the relevant States concerned should agree to the transfer. Without overcoming the State''''s opposition to the transfer, sentenced persons cannot be transferred to their home country, even though they can benefit from the transfer. Accordingly, in order to make the penal transfer schemes more advantageous to the offenders, some restrictions on the transfer needs to be rewritten. If treaty partners allow the offender to request his own transfer for his own interests with his own initiative, the state-centered system of the transfer may be improved. Actually, the penal transfer treaty between the United States of America and Canada provides for the initiation of the transfer at the offender''''s own request.
Another requirement for the transfer is the offender''''s consent. The consent should be given voluntarily and knowingly by the offender. Furthermore, the consent should be intelligent and voluntary, with the offender knowing all legal consequences thereof that he will be faced with after he is transferred to his home country. However, in a country in which the prison environment is so harsh that he could not exercise substantial choice between being transferred and remaining, the offender''''s choice cannot be made voluntarily by his own judgment. Under such circumstances, the offender''''s consent may be driven by duress under harsh circumstances. If he cannot meet the voluntary requirement of consent, constitutional problems arise because the administering state recognizes and enforces the foreign penal judgment rendered without constitutional protections under due process of law clause. If this happens, the penal transfer schemes will be at risk. The solution will be to reinforce the verification of consent and place it under strict scrutiny. Therefore, the verification process should be arranged by independent judicial officers, not by consular or administrative officials.
In addition, we should not overlook the State'''' interests in the welfare and protection of its nationals abroad. Massive imprisonment of foreign nationals usually strain bilateral relations and give rise to diplomatic tensions between related countries. Often times, mistreatment of foreign offenders give rise to public outcries in other nations, undermining the fundamental framework on which the bilateral friendship is based. As a result, we should also focus on the consular aspects of international penal transfer schemes by taking it as a means of state protection for nationals abroad. However, among other things, we should try to find ways to develop the international penal transfer into a mechanism for the protection of fundamental human rights by newly recognizing the human rights aspects of the penal transfer. The very purpose of the prisoner transfer schemes is to facilitate the prisoners'''' social rehabilitation and re-integration into the society to which they belong. Rehabilitation and re-integration is a kind of human rights values which are set forth in the international bills of human rights such as the ICCPR. To do so, current provisons should be rewritten to make the penal transfer occur by prisoner''''s own initiatives rather than those of States.
Finally, although we recognize the necessity of providing adequate opportunity for the offender to repent his wrongdoings and crime, the international community should try to use the penal transfer scheme as a means of facilitating judicial cooperation in criminal matters and administering international justice in order to eliminate trans-boundary crimes through close cooperation and make the global community safe from crimes.