Assange Exclusion Explainer
How Julian Assange has been excluded from UK Justice
On May 30, 2012 Julian Assange’s Supreme Court appeal of the validity of an arrest warrant against him was dismissed. The primary point was that the issuing authority of that warrant in Sweden had the power to do so but Assange’s legal team disagreed. The Supreme Court dismissed his case based on a French translation of “judicial authority” but Assange’s lawyers never had the chance to debate the reasoning or test the argument laid out. His legal team was then granted 14 more days to make an application to re-open his case (prevent its dismissal) so it could argue important legal points but were denied in less than 24 hrs after his defence team submitted its request for appeal. The other major point of defence concerning “proportionality” remains at issue.
Details: Findings are based on 2017 UK FOIA results here which contain emails between UK’s Crown Prosecution Service and Sweden’s Prosecution Team. (https://www.cps.gov.uk/publication/freedom-information-releases-2017)
Annex 15 was released Aug. 3, 2017 and contains details proving Assange has been detained in the UK arbitrarily.
The UK adjourned other EAW cases, held them in abeyance *pending the outcome in Assange*, which ended up being a negative outcome for Assange.
Relevant Screen Shots:
Relevant Conclusions:
The Assange arrest warrant issued by Sweden (EAW, European Arrest Warrant) was challenged in UK courts, right up to the UK Supreme Court. Assange lost the case and the UK deemed the EAW to be valid, therefore considered it an obligation to extradite him to Sweden.
During the court challenges at various levels of the UK judiciary the two main issues pertained to the “proportionality” of extraditing an uncharged person to a requesting country and the question of which Swedish representative had the authority to issue the EAW in the first place.
The issue of proportionality was resolved in UK courts and subsequently the UK revised its extradition law in 2014 to deem uncharged persons to not fit the criteria of proportionality and are/were therefore not extraditable. The revised law contained a clause stating that the law came into effect immediately but would not be applied retrospectively to cases that were already deemed “valid” in UK courts.
Assange’s EAW case was deemed valid in UK courts prior to the revised 2014 Extradition criteria, therefore he did not qualify to benefit from it.
Problems exposed in the emails:
Assange’s case was not dealt with in an equitable, unprejudiced or regular manner. It was handled irregularly, which often signals political interference.
He cannot expect “equality under the law” in UK courts going forward.
Emails explicitly state, by name, that his case was being handled differently, at a pace which was unprecedented in UK history. The Assange case was being fast tracked while other EAW cases were being delayed, adjourned, held in abeyance, thereby generating a backlog of “scores” of pending EAW cases.
After the Assange matter was determined (negative outcome for Assange), then other cases were processed according to the revised law, but Assange was excluded from being able to have it applied “retrospectively” to overturn the final Supreme Court ruling which deemed the EAW as valid in his case.
Researcher/writer Jude Fleming concluded that the UK Ministry of Justice engineered a legal loophole or roadblock to exclude Julian Assange from equitable justice.
Summary: Other EAW cases were being adjourned regularly pending the outcome in Assange. ie. EAW cases were being held in abeyance, creating a back log of “scores” of other cases. After negative outcome in Assange case, law was changed but Assange was excluded from benefitting.
Analogy: If you think of the UK Judiciary as a two lane highway…
Assange was put in the fast lane for making a Supreme Court decision to deem the EAW as valid or invalid (eg. “gone into hyperspace”, speed and informal nature of SC communications etc.).
Other EAW cases came up in court, (drove up), then were diverted off the highway and parked, “held in abeyance” and “adjourned regularly”. The parking lot of EAW cases was getting larger and generated a “back log” of cases, “pending the outcome in Assange” and amounted to “scores” of cases.
Assange was put at the front of the line of cars, then sidelined and put at the back of the line. Then his case was excluded from the revised law.
Once the Assange decision was made against him (negative outcome, EAW deemed valid), then the other cases started exiting the parking lot, went back on the highway to clear up the back log of court decisions. Assange was put at the back of the line and was essentially parked off the highway until the back log was cleared.
When the UK changed its law in 2014, other EAW cases benefited from the new law but Assange hit a road block when a clause was added to the new law that it would not be applied retrospectively.
Remedy:
The solution is to inform the public of the emails which contain the “smoking gun” of UK corruption, then demand that the revised 2014 UK extradition criteria be applied retrospectively to the Assange matter.
Further reading, my 2nd blog on the thesis with links to my first blog published Sept. 2018
When the UK handled Assange Case irregularly, it signals political interference, likely up to level of Prime Min. David Cameron, Sir Kier Starmer (DPP) and William Hague (Foreign Secretary) who ran the charade. The irregular handling of the Assange matter indicates that it has been politically motivated, not governed by due process.