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Judge In Pirate Bay Trial Biased
maglo writes "The judge who handed down the harsh sentence to the four accused in the The Pirate Bay trial was biased, writes Sveriges Radio (Sweden Public Radio): sr.se (swedish). Google translation. The judge is member of two copyright lobby organizations, something he shares with several of the prosecutor attorneys (Monique Wadsted, Henrik Pontén and Peter Danowsky). The organizations in question are Svenska Föreningen för Upphovsrätt (SFU) and Svenska föreningen för industriellt rättsskydd (SFIR)."
Because I'm sure TPB's lawyers can.
If the allegations are true, they should easily win an appeal... assuming the rest of the judicial system is not so corrupt... allegedly, of course.
The problem with socialism is that they always run out of other people's money. - Margaret Thatcher
Aren't Judges supposed to remove themselves from a case if there is a known conflict of interest or an arguable bias? Don't they get in trouble for presiding over cases with this bias?
Maybe someone with a background in law can answer this? Google didn't seem to want to give any definitive answers. Then again, maybe the laws in Sweden are different?
Here's a link to the story in the Wall Street Journal.
Damn. Just who are the pirates in this case?
3 things about computers: they're alive, they're self-aware, and they hate your guts.
IANAL but would this not be grounds for a mistrial and sanctions against the judge in question? I am pretty sure that in America, if you have a bias due to affiliation then you should recuse yourself from the case as a judge. I am not sure about Sweden, but this would only make sense since a judge is _supposed_ to be fair and impartial.
Kinda hard to be impartial when you belong to the same organization as three of the prosecutors...
I call bullshit!
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Live as if you'll die tomorrow.
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How is a judge even allowed to belong to such an organization? A judge who does, and who believes what he is doing, will be the definition of activist judge. Judges aren't supposed to have their own agendas. They're there to execute the law and therefore ostensibly the will of the people.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
bias or not, I think its interesting that he, possible the only judge in Sweden that is a member of both these organizations got to be the judge in this case.
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Several experts in Sweden are calling for a re-trial with another judge.
It's somewhat embarrassing. The judge says that he made the call that his participation in "intellectual property groups" (upphovsrättsföreningar) did not bias him.
When the trial started a nämndeman (assistant to the judge) was dismissed because he was considered biased due to his profession as a composer.
It sure will be interesting to see how this one plays out. One might assert that the judge made a huge mistake by taking the case and thus wasting a tremendous amount of time and energy for both sides. Rather moronic for a judge, who should be able to see this type of conflicts.
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It is not like they are getting out of it. What will happen is that HovrÃtten (the Court of Appeal) will decide if there were bias or not. Depending on the decision it will either be a retrial or their appeals will go to HovrÃtten in due time. Not much of a change judicially, although PR wise it certainly benefits TPB.
"I have downloaded hundreds and hundreds of records, why would I care if somebody downloads ours?" Robin Pecknold
...cleared the search warrant towards TPB +3 years ago, I wonder if that was properly handled, from the articles here in sweden it seems he took the warrant-request from APB and just signed it and added "take anything you find interesting" and let them have at it.
Lawyer Peter Althin, representing the Pirate Bay spokesperson Peter Sunde calls for retrial
There have been a series of interesting events surrounding the extended Pirate Bay process. It started with PRQ (the web hotel hosting TPB) being illegally raided, and to add the icing on that cake, the minister in charge acting in violation of the Swedish constitution by directly ordering law enforcement (see New Technology's "Was the Raid a Judicial Scandal?" [in Swedish]). Then the FRA and IPRED bills passed in direct defiance of election promises and popular opinion folding to foreign pressure, as was the trial itself. It is hardly surprising that it turned out that the judge was cherry picked. The judge, Thomas NorstrÃm, argued that "My view has been that these activities do not constitute a conflict of interest," and he was not swayed in his judgement by involvement with copyright protection groups.
There was great surprise over the April 17th ruling. Even the legal experts that expected a conviction were taken aback by the prison sentence and the size of the compensatory fine.
The current debate on Swedish technical boards is one of conspiracy theories. Swedes are generally relatively hesitant of suggesting conspiracies, but this one reeks of collusion.
The former Chief Prosecutor Sven-Erik Alhem says (in Swedish) that this will hurt the international renown of Swedish courts as well as damage domestic belief in judicial neutrality and safety.
Also interesting is the public statement from the Pirate Party which calls this "Corruption and miscarriage of justice" and "The copyright lobby has really managed to bring corruption to Sweden".
This may turn out to be a huge inconvenience for the copyright organisations and for the ruling coalition.
Of the two organizations, only one appears to be problematic.
SFU is basically an organization for people who want to keep up to date with IP law. Of course you'll find judges here, and RIAA/etc. will of course get their lawyers from here - after all, if you go into an IP-related trial, you want someone with knowledge in IP to represent you.
SFIR is more problematic, as they state as one of their purposes is to "contribute" to the evolution of IP rights in Sweden and world wide. What kind of evolution is unsaid - it need not be copyright extensions, and I think a lot of the final decision in regards to the bias will depend on just what SFIR does.
So much for the bias of the judge. What will happen with TPB, then? Well, they may (or may not) get a new trial. But so far there has been no argument as to that the verdict shows signs of bias in finding them guilty. That is, biased as the judge may be, the verdict is unlikely to change. Maybe the fine will be reduced, but I doubt that, given that Carl (the old guy) is a multimillionaire and can pay the 30 megaSEK. (As a side note, the younger TPB guys were probably right in saying that they wouldn't pay the fine: The old guy will.)
The prosecution got a guilty verdict without actually managing to prove any wrongdoing due to severe incompetence and lack of knowledge.
It was pretty clear something was odd about the decision, whether the TPB guys were right or wrong is irrelevant when the prosecution are unable to actually prove any wrongdoing.
You can't legitimately get a guilty verdict if you haven't proven that they're guilty of doing something illegal, accusations alone aren't enough.
The interesting thing now will be to see what happens as a result of this revelation. It's probably worth pointing out that this conspiracy almost certainly goes deeper - the first judge due to judge their trial was removed due to conflict of interest IIRC and this is his replacement, so the real question has to be who is responsible for repeatedly ensuring the judges presiding over this case have strong music industry/pro-copyright lobby links? Who in Sweden determines which judge should oversee a particular case?
If you have your cousin's telephone number, I'm sure Slashdot would appreciate a submission from you on your cousin's view on:
* the bias of the judge and what is likely to happen next
* why assisting making available affects TPB and not Google
* did he find the sentence and compensation excessive
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Phillip.
Property for sale in Nice, France
Conflict of Interest
A conflict of interest occurs when an individual or organization (such as a lawyer, insurance adjuster, politician, engineer, executive, director of a corporation, medical research scientist, physician, writer, editor, or an individual or organization cited as a source) has an interest that might compromise their reliability. A conflict of interest exists even if no improper act results from it, and can create an appearance of impropriety that can undermine confidence in the conflicted individual or organization.
Actual bias does not need to be demonstrated for there to be a conflict of interest.
There is certainly enough potential for bias here that the judge should have never been allowed to hear the case, period. In fact, even though I suspect the defendants may have known about this and waited until after the trial for strategic reasons, I think the prosecution were the ones who should have objected initially, as they will now be the ones with the egg on their faces.
Momentarily, the need for the construction of new light will no longer exist.
When I write legislators, I don't include hookers, blow, and cold hard cash in my statement.
There is a difference between warriors and hired guns. Hired judges are of course something very special. I thought Sweden had high standards concerning internet governance?