I read with interest Joshua Rozenberg’s recent column on the Joint Committee on Human Rights’ call for reform of the European arrest warrant.

As the only charity helping vulnerable people who are detained in a country other than their own, Fair Trials International has seen many cases where ordinary people have suffered serious injustice as a result of Europe’s fast-track extradition system (see, for example, the cases of Edmond Arapi, Deborah Dark and Michael Turner).

We are, therefore, delighted that the Joint Committee has added its influential voice to the growing number of calls for reform.

The UK is not the only EU member state to have concerns.

In recent months, there has been public and political criticism of the arrest warrant in the Netherlands, legal controversy in Germany and also concern expressed in Poland.

EU institutions are also beginning to recognise that all is not well with the arrest warrant (for more information, see the Fair Trials website).

Given this, I do not share Mr Rozenberg’s view that renegotiating the EU framework decision on the arrest warrant is ‘clearly unrealistic’.

It is not unrealistic to expect the EU to want to ensure its flagship EU justice measure operates efficiently (rather than being used for countless minor crimes at great expense) and that it also respects basic rights.

Surely, refining and improving the legislation in light of how it has worked and failed over nearly a decade would be the most sensible and realistic way forward. If this does not happen, public and political faith in the measure will continue to erode as Europe’s extradition system produces more cases of injustice.

This would certainly not be in the interests of the police and prosecutors who rightly argue that Europe needs to work together to fight serious cross-border crime.

Jago Russell, chief executive, Fair Trials International