Political offence exception

A political offence exception (or exemption) is a proviso which limits the obligation of a sovereign state under an extradition or mutual legal assistance treaty or statute. Such provisos allow the state whose assistance has been requested ("the requested party") to refuse to hand over a suspect to — or to gather evidence on behalf of — another state ("the requesting party"), if the requested party's competent authority determines that the requesting party seeks assistance in order to prosecute an offence of a political character.

The concept of an exception for political offences is a very new idea compared to the concept of extradition itself, and indeed constitutes an almost complete reversal of the original purpose of extradition. The earliest treaties for handing over criminal suspects from one country to another, dating from the 13th century BC, were aimed exclusively at fugitives who had committed political or religious crimes. Sovereigns made little effort towards the recapture of common criminals who had fled their jurisdiction, but actively pursued political criminals, to the extent of requesting aid from other sovereigns.

After the French Revolution, international attitudes towards the extradition of political offenders began a slow shift. In 1833, Belgium became the first country to legislate a prohibition against the extradition of political offenders, and included such a prohibition in its extradition treaty with France the following year. France itself began including such exceptions in its extradition treaties with various other countries over the several decades that followed. France began to include the political offence exception in its treaties later that year; the United States followed suit starting in 1843, and England in 1852. Belgium, as the first country to codify a political offence exception to extradition, was also a pioneer in efforts to define the outer limits of what exactly constitutes a "political offence". In what is now known as the clause d'attentat or the clause Belge, Belgium excluded from the definition of "political offence" crimes committed against the life of a head of state or head of government after having to refuse to extradite two persons who attempted to assassinate Napoleon III.

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