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Julian Assange Supreme Court Appeal Hearing

Today the 1st February, 2012, at the Supreme Court in London, UK's highest court, Julian Assange's QC Counsel Dianah Rose,

 presented an absolute compelling argument why

Julian Assange must win his appeal to stop himself from being extradited to Sweden.  CIA operative Marko has confessed to an AWN reporter that these are false charges as a way to force Jullan Assange to Sweden, where authorities in the USA will make sure Julian Assange will be extradited to the USA, and no doubt murdered in a US prison

WikiLeaks aside, Assange case strikes core of civil liberty

Geoffrey Robertson February 3, 2012 Opinion

Europe has blurred the line between enforcement and the judiciary.

JULIAN Assange's current court appearance in Britain has nothing to do with sex or United States diplomatic cables or even with WikiLeaks. But it may make an important contribution to European law.

The United Kingdom Supreme Court will be considering the point I raised on his behalf when a Swedish prosecutor claimed to be a ''judicial authority'' empowered to issue a warrant to have him extradited to prison in Stockholm. My written argument began quite bluntly: ''The notion that a prosecutor is a 'judicial authority' is a contradiction in terms.''

Judges must, as their defining quality, be independent of government. Police and prosecutors employed and promoted by the state obviously cannot be perceived as impartial if they are permitted to decide issues on the liberty of individuals.

They are expected to be zealous in working up evidence against a suspect, so they are the last people who can be trusted to weigh up impartially the evidence they themselves have drummed up. That is a matter for a court.

So how comes it that in Sweden and many other European countries, prosecutors and even policemen and women are allowed to issue a so-called European arrest warrant, which has the draconian effect of requiring the arrest of people in another country and dragging them for trial in the state which has issued the warrant?

The answer partly derives from the lack of principle in the historical development of European criminal law, where for centuries prosecutors and ministers of justice have exercised powers that in the UK and Australia would need judicial approval. That Napoleonic figure, the ''investigating magistrate'' - a judicial official who conducts a pretrial investigation - has helped to muddy the distinction between law enforcement agencies and judges.

So when the major European countries got together 12 years ago to devise a fast-track extradition process, and decided that European arrest warrants requiring the arrest and surrender of individuals could be issued by ''judicial authorities'', there was some confusion about what that term meant, and whether police and prosecutors might qualify. Sweden and some other countries thought they did.

It will be inconvenient if Assange's appeal succeeds, because European countries will have to change their laws. But the argument from inconvenience is the classic way for civil liberties to be lost.

The principle of judicial independence is especially important in the Assange case, where an allegation of what Swedes describe as ''minor rape'' (another contradiction in terms) was dismissed by a very experienced Stockholm prosecutor.

It was later revived (in an unfair process from which Assange was excluded) by another prosecutor with a gender agenda who was given to issuing self-promoting press statements and withholding exculpatory evidence. She was, therefore, an inappropriate person to take what should have been an impartial decision about whether a European arrest warrant should be issued against her quarry.

So the point is important, as the UK's Supreme Court said in December when granting leave to appeal. Its decision can be expected in April or May this year.

A ruling in Assange's favour would not prevent Sweden from extraditing him eventually, but it would have to change its procedures and have his European arrest warrant issued by a court. Other countries - France and Germany among them - would have to change their practice of having police and prosecutors issuing European arrest warrants as well, if they want to get their hands on suspects in the UK.

The case comes at an interesting time in Britain, where there is a debate over whether the country's acceptance of the European Convention on Human Rights should be supplemented or replaced with a British Bill of Rights which would strengthen traditional liberties.

You cannot get anything more traditional than the liberty that flows from the independence of the judiciary.

The notion that anyone in the UK can be arrested, deported, denied bail and then tried in secret (the procedure for dealing with sex crime charges in Sweden), all on the say-so of an obviously prejudiced foreign prosecutor, could strike many as oppressive.

Former UN appeal judge Geoffrey Robertson, QC, advises Julian Assange and is the author of Crimes Against Humanity and The Justice Game.

Comments:
As a male, I am disgusted that female hate can and does victimise men with the slur of "sexual assault."
Why isn't the cold light of day being focused on the female prosecutor attacking Assange?
Why is this prosecutor still supported by her country?
The American background influence, to get Assange ultimately to the USA for "prosecution" is an affront to all of our freedoms.
USA = good guys? HA!
Meanwhile, Gillard, this self-interested political organism, does nothing in support of an Australian citizen.
Seriously, the worst of humanity is in charge of humanity.

Commenter

Dude

Location

Date and time

February 03, 2012, 8:11AM

• I support Assange.
  Hardly think abbott ,brandis,pyne or other liberals suppport Assange,do not know why you picked out the PM,not sure about the greens as they are too busy with non Australians.

  Commenter

  Hooble

  Location

  Melbourne

  Date and time

  February 03, 2012, 3:37PM

Great article highlighting what the legal debate is actually about --- and the risk in letting the protection of our freedoms slip. John Pilinger's article on this is also good: http://johnpilger.com/articles/the-assange-case-means-we-are-all-suspects-now

As America shuts down bank funds to Wikileaks without trial, drone-kills its own citizen, allows indefinite detention (new "NDAA" law), trial Manning without media access, demands our data from Twitter etc, and some in Congress pushe for China-like control of the internet (SOPA) - responsible journalists and citizens really need to push back against these new abuses of power.

• Great article highlighting what the legal debate is actually about......
  I'm far from being a lawyer or a politician, there is one thing if true democracy was respected by the selective elite we wouldn't all the problems we have.

  If democracy means "Government of the people, by the people, for the people" than why the people are irrelevant?

Excellent article Geoffrey. It does seem a no-brainer but we live in strange times. Obama just passed into law the ability for the US security services to drag out of their homes in the middle of the night, citizens and aliens, to be locked up, rendited, tortured and held without trial.No doubt in response to the OWS movement, this law also allows the regular military (as opposed to the National Guard) onto the streets for the first time ever.

And here in Australia of course we destroyed a thousand years of habeus corpus ourselves under John Howard with Labor obsequient acquiescence. Napoleon couldn't do it, Hitler couldn't do it, but plow an aircraft into a skyscraper a continent away and of course the natural response is to destroy a thousand years of justice.

Commenter

worrierqueen

Location

Date and time

February 03, 2012, 8:25AM

• but we live in strange times.....WHY?

  but we live in a phoney democracy and phoney democracy means phoney rules too.

  Commenter

  half

  Location

  Sydney

  Date and time

  February 03, 2012, 10:37AM

• Yeah I think you're a little confused on that first point worrierqueen. The president of the US doesn't have the ability to pass laws, only to veto them. Although vetos have been abused in the past, the president should, in theory, *only* veto a law if it degrades national security, of which this doesn't. Sure this law is ugly, but it was passed in a democratic way, however you want to dice it.

  Ironically, the mere act of democracy appears to be an inconvenient truth to many democrats. People from both sides of politics regularly espouse their views as if they're some universal truth, like they're talking on behalf of humanity. Sometimes, being part of a democracy means you have to concede that you're not in the majority on many issues and decisions will be made that you're not happy with.

  Commenter

  Mike

  Location

  Sydney

  Date and time

  February 03, 2012, 3:31PM

Hopefully the British judiciary will uphold the rights of the individual and send a strong message to those who wish to challenge it.

The same fundamental rights that the elected leaders and public servants of the western world seem to have forgotten, even after solemnly swearing to serve their people above all others [not just vested interests and corporations].

Fingers crossed for a sign that the concept of right and wrong still exists, in the halls of power, somewhere on the planet.

Commenter

Fingers Crossed

Location

Sydney

Date and time

February 03, 2012, 8:44AM

An interesting article which poses a number of valid questions.
More importantly to me is that fact that the Australian Government has turned its back on an Australian citizen who is being "railroaded". Consider this in the light of the article's view about who can issue an arrest warrant and whether or not there is judicial independence?

• What can the Australian government do?
  What should the Australian government do?

  The Australian government is providing consular assistance as is the case with any Australian arrest overseas. Contrary to the views of many self-appointed lawyers, Australia does not wield some kind of supreme international authority and Australia has no business interfering in other countries judiciary processes. The Australian government only has a mandate to provide *consular assistance* (ie. not even legal assistance) within the confines of the law of the country.

  Just because Assange is high-profile doesn't mean the government should spend any more time or effort on assisting him than they would any other Australian overseas.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/wikileaks-aside-assange-case-strikes-core-of-civil-liberty-20120202-1qvj2.html#ixzz1lN4qA5BL

Julian Assange Starts Extradition Trial In UK Supreme Court

LONDON (AP) — WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange on Wednesday launched a final attempt to persuade British officials not to force him to go to Sweden to face sex crimes allegations.

A lawyer for the 40-year-old Australian told Britain's highest court that age-old legal tradition would be compromised if it endorsed a European Arrest Warrant written up by Swedish prosecutors.

The Supreme Court hearing is the latest chapter in Assange's months-long fight against allegations of molestation and rape lodged by two women he met during a trip to Sweden in 2010, just as his website was grabbing worldwide attention with its spectacular leaks of sensitive U.S. government documents.

Assange denies the allegations, arguing that the sex was consensual, and has refused to return to Sweden, saying he fears the case against him is being manipulated to political ends.

Although Assange's saga has been shot through with international diplomacy, cyberactivism and scandal, the case now before the U.K. Supreme Court hinges on a dry technicality: Whether Sweden's public prosecutor was qualified to issue a warrant for Assange's arrest.

In Britain as in the United States, generally only judges can issue arrest warrants, and U.K. courts only honor European arrest warrants issued by what they describe as judicial authorities.

So far British courts have upheld the Swedish warrant on the grounds that prosecutors there, like elsewhere in Europe, play a quasi-judicial role.

Assange lawyer Dinah Rose tried to tear that argument apart Wednesday, telling the seven justices gathered in wood-panelled Courtroom 1 that a prosecutor "does not, and indeed cannot as a matter of principle, exercise judicial authority."

Rose said that putting the power to arrest suspects in the hands of the same prosecutors bent on trying and convicting them was completely unfair, arguing that the principle could be traced back to the laws of the Byzantine Empire.

"No one may be a judge in their own case," Rose said, later calling it "about as fundamental a principle as you can have."

Rose spent four hours combing through British case law, parliamentary reports and European draft treaties to buttress her argument — sometimes even slipping into French to make finer points about the documents' wording.

She went on to criticize the way that many countries had implemented the European arrest warrant system — which fast-tracks extraditions between European nations — and condemned Sweden's justice system, which she accused of falling down on its legal obligations.

She also had tart words for Britain's lower courts, which she said had shown signs of "incoherence" in their judgments.

Rose spoke confidently and with few interruptions — unlike Sweden's lawyer Clare Montgomery, who was repeatedly questioned by judges about her assertion that impartiality wasn't a prerequisite for issuing an arrest warrant.

"The decision whether to arrest somebody might be made by somebody who is partisan," Montgomery insisted. "That happens throughout Europe."

The U.K. justices will hear more from Montgomery on Thursday. Their ruling isn't expected for another few weeks.

Experts interviewed before the hearing said the advantage was with the Swedish side.

Karen Todner, a prominent extradition specialist, said that Assange's lawyers were unlikely to overcome the benefit of the doubt usually afforded to other European countries' judicial systems.

British judges "absolutely defer" to their European counterparts' justice systems, she said, adding that she would be "very surprised" if Assange's team triumphed.

If they rule against Assange, the 40-year-old Australian is expected to be on a flight to Sweden within two weeks. Assange could conceivably appeal to the European Court of Human Rights, but because Sweden is a fellow European country that would not stop his extradition.

Once in Sweden he would be arrested and a detention hearing would be held within four days. Prosecutors could decide to release him after questioning, but the court could also extend his period of detention. Such hearings must be held every two weeks until a suspect is charged or released. There is no bail in Sweden.

It's still not clear whether charges will be brought against Assange if he's brought to Sweden. If he were convicted, the penalties for the types of crime he's accused of range from fines to as much as six years in prison.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/wikileaks-aside-assange-case-strikes-core-of-civil-liberty-20120202-1qvj2.html#ixzz1lN4QSbc8

Alan Bond's Cottesloe house. Picture: Lee Griffith

 

Di Bliss and Alan Bond on their wedding day in 1995.

Police confirm Alan Bond's wife dead

January 29, 2012 

 

http://inlnews.com/AllanBond_DiBliss_WAust.html

 No love lost ... Moon and Harmer

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