The balance point on which the law bases its decision between the need to cooperate in the fight against international crime and the protection of the extradition candidate's case has changed. It no longer focuses on the stage of prosecution or even on the point of conviction. With regard to these, and despite the difficulty involved in this from the defendant's perspective, the law grants priority status to interstate cooperation, i.e., extradition. The defendant's case - an Israeli citizen and a resident - is expressed, but at the stage when the legal proceedings have ended, it is the stage of serving the sentence. This distinction, between the mitigation of the burden of serving the sentence in a foreign country and the question of the place of clarification of his guilt, i.e., extradition, are summarized by the words of MK B. Alon in the discussion of the second and third readings of the 5759 amendment to the Extradition Law:
"As Israelis who respect our citizens, even non-Jews, and as Jews who are sensitive to the point of being in a foreign prison, we are sensitive to the issue of serving the sentence. On the other hand, according to the very law and its clarification, we cannot afford to be a state of refuge for organized criminal gangs, even if they are Israeli gangs" (D.C. 183 (1999) 4214).
The Normative Balance
- After we have considered the nature of the public interest in the extradition issue, it must be put to the test of balance against the constitutional right of a person not to be confined. This balance is always the result of considering the individual circumstances of each case. Insist on this President Shamgar:
"The great principle is that extradition is carried out in accordance with the principles formulated in the law, and the obligation to uphold the legislative purpose of the extradition laws is withdrawn only in exceptional circumstances, in which a fundamental principle is violated, which decisively tilts the scales in the opposite direction. Each case is examined, of course, in light of the totality of the circumstances" (The Aloni case [16], at p. 47).