It will be widely noted that a judgment delivered at the High Court in Dublin has for the first time in many years brought the question of extradition to the fore.
In previous decades, the proposed transfer of paramilitary suspects from one jurisdiction to another was frequently surrounded by legal uncertainty and upheaval.
Considerable political tensions arose before, through a number of developments, matters were addressed and agreed arrangements put in place.
However, as we have reported in recent days, an intervention by a Dublin judge has put a spotlight on security procedures in Maghaberry prison in Co Antrim.
Ms Justice Aileen Donnelly said that Co Tyrone man Damien McLaughlin (40) could be subjected to `inhuman and degrading conditions’ if he was sent across the border to Maghaberry.
McLaughlin was detained in Co Donegal last March on foot of an European arrest warrant after going missing from a bail address in west Belfast four months previously.
He is accused of aiding and abetting the murder of prison officer David Black, who was shot dead as he drove to work at Maghaberry in November, 2012, and other related charges.
The judge specifically highlighted the use of strip searches in Maghaberry, and said she had requested further information from the Irish government about body scanning technology in its institutions.
There will be surprise that the issue has arisen again some six years after a review recommended that strip searching at Maghaberry should be phased out.
It should surely be possible for the authorities to provide solutions which will allow the extradition of McLaughlin to be completed and his high profile case to proceed without further delay.
