Judge Reviewing Pirate Bay Trial Bias Is Removed

oh-my-god sends word that the Swedish judge assigned to review whether the trial judge in the Pirate Bay trial was biased has now been removed — for bias. Here's a local news account in Swedish, which Google fails to translate. We've discussed the convolutions of this case on more than one occasion.

Comments

Great Summary

[Sagara Sozou]

This doesn't even tell us how the judge was biased.

If anyone's wondering, both the original judge and the reviewing judge were part of the same copyright-supporting organizations.

Translation

[nmb3000]

Google fails to automatically translate the page, but not the content. Translation follows:

The Court of Appeal replace the newly appointed judge in Pirate Bay case. The question of the district court was biased now determined by three judges from another department.

The information can be mentioned that none of these are or have been members of any of the compounds are present in the case, write the court of appeal in a press release.

Following reports that the newly appointed Court of Appeal judge in Pirate Baymålet previously been a member of the same compound as the copyright jävsanklagade District Court judge, asked the Court of Appeal president yesterday to hear unless another law departments should determine jävsfrågan.

Today came the decision: Designated hovrätt Council Ulrika Ihrfelt, who works for the department which has a special focus on copyright and intellectual property goals, may not adjudicate the issue of the district court was biased.

Instead, jävsfrågan be moved to another court of appeal of the departments and review by the department head, hovrätt lagmannen Anders Eka together with the Court of Appeal councils Christina Jacobsson and Ulrika Beer Grehn.

"The reasons for this is to jävsfrågan to be reviewed by other judges than those which may subsequently come to try the case and that, having regard to the contents of jävs-opposition, deemed appropriate to jävsfrågan be determined on a department that has not specialized on copyright, "writes the court of appeal in the press release.

Jävsfrågan should be treated with priority. Court of Appeal president Fredrik Wersäll expect that decision may come "in a maximum of a few weeks", states the TT.

The Court of Appeal will not go ahead with the Pirate Bay case until jävsfrågan settlement. If Norström would be judged as biased, the goal can be sent back to district court and the ruling reopened.

Several of the condemned pirates defense lawyers argue that Norström been biased, particularly because he is a member of several compounds related to copyright. The four sentenced to one year's imprisonment and to pay damages of 30 million.

The Swedish judicial system...

[oh2]

...is not like the American one.

TingsrÃtten is the lowest court, all cases go before a judge and three lay assistants that judge the case on the evidence.

HovrÃtten is the next level, its the district appeals courts of Sweden. A large number of cases end up here and are judged by three judges. Pirate Bay was always going to end up there since its such a difficult case.

HÃgsta Domstolen is the Supreme Court of Sweden, it only handles very sticky cases and those that set precedents.

What has happened is that the lawyers for the Pirate Bay people have appealed to HovrÃtten and also put forward a claim that the original judge in TingsrÃtten is biased due to his membership in an association for copyright interests. The HovrÃtts-judge that was going to assess this claim has previously been a member of such an association and has because of this been recused. A panel of three senior judges in the HovrÃtt is now going to first assess the TingsrÃtten judges possible bias and then make a determination if the trial needs to be remade in TingsrÃtten with a new judge, or if it should be redone in HovrÃtten. These three have no affiliations with special interest groups on copyright and do not practice that kind of law.

Im quite pleased actually that our Judicial system is so carefully dealing with the whole Pirate Bay mess.