The government is intent on an immediate legislative response to the terrorist attacks in the US of 11 September.

Curtailing the ability of suspects to manipulate an 'outmoded' extradition process is high on the agenda.But intemperate remarks about delays in extradition do not address underlying problems and fail to do justice to what has been a lengthy and low-key consultation in this complex area.

Proper reform may be a casualty of the political imperative to 'do something'.Extradition can be slow.

Delays of many months can be caused, for example, by failures of requesting states initially to provide anything but the most flimsy documentation, by constraints of court time and by files sitting in the Home Office.Legal argument also takes time.

If a suspect is to be sent to an alien jurisdiction with an unfamiliar language, a system of justice about which the suspect may know nothing, away from family and contacts, it is only right that the request for extradition should be rigorously tested.In any event, extradition to a country which has ratified the European Convention on Extradition, even under the current procedure, does not require the requesting state to produce prima facie evidence -- simply a statement of facts.The debate over problems in extradition is not new.

The 1995 and 1996 EU Conventions on Extradition began to address such problems by, among ot her things, simplifying uncontested committals, reducing the scope of speciality (by which a suspect can be tried in the requesting state only for those offences for which committal is granted), and by abolishing the political offence exception to extradition.

The UK has not ratified either of the conventions.The 1999 Tampere Summit on the creation of a European 'area of freedom, security and justice' recommended the abolition of extradition of convicted persons and its replacement by simple transfer.

It also recommended fast track extradition (without definition) 'without prejudice to the principle of a fair trial'.In 1999 the UK report to the EU proposed mutual recognition of arrest warrants and convictions but recognised that this would 'rest on the presumption of directly comparable systems of justice and directly comparable protection for the individual'.

Last March, the Home Office issued proposals for fast-track extradition to EU countries.

The Law Society responded in June, welcoming simplification but cautioning against reducing grounds for appeal for those required by certain states and the removal of speciality for EU and Schengen states.As the 1999 report stated, 'public opinion is not yet always ready to accept that the judicial authorities and procedures of other member states are equivalent to their domestic courts, especially where their own nationals are involved'.

Put bluntly, a view was taken that the average UK citizen would not willingly countenance removal of British nationals to other countries, distrusting other judicial systems even more than their own.This may be an unwelcome attitude but key to changing it is open and detailed discussion as to the merits or otherwise of more streamlined extradition arrangements.The discussions which had been taking place run the risk of being truncated.

Proposals which even a year ago were seen as long-term goals -- such as EU arrest warrants -- were rushed on to the statute book in an atmosphere suffused with the suspicion that lawyers and the courts, according to home secretary David Blunkett, were taking 'an unnecessary legalistic' view of the Human Rights Act, and 'bringing the country into disrepute' when defending clients in extradition proceedings.It would be a lost opportunity for building that common EU area of justice if, rather than diminishing suspicion of and co-operation with other jurisdictions, ill-considered and ultimately unpopular legislation only served to worsen the position and set back reform.