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Assange Talk Spurs UK Judges To Boycott Legal Conference
An anonymous reader writes The Commonwealth Law Conference in Glasgow was subjected to walk outs and boycott once it became known that Julian Assange was to appear by video link from the Ecuadorian embassy to give a talk at the conference. The Guardian reports that, "Judges from Scotland, England and Wales and the UK supreme court had agreed to speak at or chair other sessions but withdrew – in some cases after arriving at the conference centre– when they found out about Assange's appearance. Among those to boycott the conference were the most senior judge in Scotland, Lord Gill, and two judges on the supreme court, Lord Neuberger and Lord Hodge. A spokesperson for the Judicial Office for Scotland said: "The conference programme was changed to include Mr Assange's participation at short notice and without consultation. Mr Assange is, as a matter of law, currently a fugitive from justice, and it would therefore not be appropriate for judges to be addressed by him. "Under these circumstances, the lord president, Lord Gill, and the other Scottish judicial officeholders in attendance have withdrawn from the conference." A spokesman for the UK supreme court added: "Lord Neuberger and Lord Hodge share the concerns expressed by Lord Gill and his fellow senior Scottish judges ... "As a result of this unfortunate development, they trust that delegates will understand their decision to withdraw from the conference. ..." A spokesman for judiciary of England and Wales said: "The lord chief justice shares the concerns expressed by Lord Gill and Lord Neuberger ... He agreed with the position taken by both, and the judges of England and Wales also withdrew from the conference. ...""
Shh. you might make sense. Where Assange is concerned common sense, and legal standing aren't allowed.
on Slashdot if you assume anything other than men in black are out to get assange you will be modded into oblivion and trolled hard.
The simple fact is Assange destroyed wikileaks all by himself. notice how they aren't publishing leaks of any kind of quality for the last several years. His ego got to big, and he burned himself. now he doesn't have any credibility with anyone but conspiracy theorists.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
Name one government that actually is in touch with their civilians. Everybody I spoke with is pro-Assange (on- and offline) not one government is...
No he isn't, regardless of how much you want him to be. But it is interesting how many have bought into his PR bullshit while ignoring the fact that if the US wanted him, they had ample opportunity to get him from the UK in the years before he fled into the embassy.
Assange fled UK jurisdiction to avoid being legally extradited by a recognised court of the land - so yes, he is a fugitive. So your example is complete rubbish because its not equivalent to the Assange situation at all - if the chief justice of Scotland appeared in front of a court in Iran and the court ruled against him, and then he fled Iran, then yes he would be a fugitive.
The UK handled everything per the law. They received an extradition request from a country they have a treaty with regarding this. They are required by the treaty to deal with these, they can't ignore them. So they reviewed it in court, to make sure it was a valid request per the treaty and decided it was. He appealed and the case moved up the chain until the high court heard it and decided that this extradition request is legitimate under the treaty, the UK has no standing to refuse.
Up until this point, Assanage was in no trouble in the UK, he hadn't broken UK law, they were just acting based on the extradition request. However then he fled. That is now a violation of UK law. He violated the conditions of his bail. That makes him a criminal in the UK. Skipping bail doesn't make you a "political prisoner" it makes you a standard criminal.
Again, the issue is NOT what other countries want.
While in the UK, under an English court's bail, he breached his bail conditions.
Everything else is a side-issue to whether he's actually a fugitive in the UK or not. Any country with an interest can register it and we'll send him on as and when the law requires. But, at the moment, he's committed a UK crime on UK soil, and stupidly against a UK court.
If he gets out of the embassy, he'll be arrested FOR THAT INSTANTLY PROVABLE CHARGE first. Then we'll worry about everything else but - pretty much - we'd agreed (and it was legally correct for us to agree without changes to existing laws to accommodate that) to extradite him to Sweden. We made them go back several times to dot their i's and cross their t's in that regard and refused to release him to them until it was done. That's sorted.
So he'll come out. Be arrested. Stand charge for skipping bail (evidence is overwhelming including by his own admission - because him being in the embassy is a breach of bail conditions in and of itself - and it's quite obvious it was a wilful violation). Then we'll hand him over to Sweden as we're legally required to (now that they've sorted out the paperwork, but as a member of the EU policing laws we would always have been eventually subject to doing so anyway - the US is a different matter entirely that would need a court's approval, and that court would be the one in Sweden, not the UK). Then whatever happens to him is Sweden's problem. If they extradite him to the US, they better do it REALLY carefully or else Sweden will be in breach of the same EU policing laws that it's using to get hold of him in the first place (they would have to reasonably ensure his life was not endangered by doing so, for instance).
But, first and foremost, he's a wanted CRIMINAL in the UK for skipping bail (we don't really use the word fugitive). It's like getting Al Capone on tax evasion, but cross-territory. And all the UK care about is the bail. Everything else is someone else's problem because we're not dealing direct with any US transfer where the only real scrutiny of human rights, etc. need take place (it's laid down in law that we can assume other EU member provide adequate human rights to comply with UK law, for example).
That these judges were required to show "loyalty" to their government by walking out, instead of asserting the independence of the judiciary
No, they showed loyalty to the judicial system by not allowing it to be railroaded into becoming part of a piece of political theatre.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
Firstly, the UK judiciary is not the UK government. I case you haven't grasped the concept of an independant judiciary, this is something we take quite seriously in the UK, and judges fiercly defend their independence from government (often to the chagrin of the government, c.f. the governments struggles to deport certain islamic preachers).
Secondly, what part of "Mr Assange is, as a matter of law, currently a fugitive from justice" do you not understand? That is a legal fact, and judges are bound to act appropriately. It would be entirely inappropriate for judges to sit there and be addressed by someone who has a current valid arrest warrant for a serious crime outstanding against them.
Thirdly, speak for yourself. I don't like Assange, and I'm certainly not the only person in the UK who feels that way. WikiLeaks may have done some good by bringing certain information to light (although even there it could have done better, a bit more care about what was released and how it was released would have given a lot less ammunition to people who don't want to respect people's freedoms and rights, and possibly lead to better outcomes for people like Bradley Manning), but Assange himself is a hypocrite and a coward, and I'd deport him in a second if I had any say in the matter.
Oh no... it's the future.
He is a political refugee, he has sought and been granted political asylum by Ecuador. So at least one sovereign nation has called BS on the political witch hunt.
No sir I dont like it.
I'm anti-Assange.
He skipped UK bail. Up until then, I thought he was just an idiot, now he's a criminal idiot.
However, if anything, technically protecting Assange could be seen as protecting a suspected rapist, no?
Sorry, but he's no hero. The stuff from Wikileaks is a bunch of useless junk that didn't change anything. Snowden did a hundred times more at a hundred times the risk. The quicker he gives up, is arrested, spends time in a UK jail and then gets passed away to another country (legally) and stops me paying my part of MILLIONS OF POUNDS OF TAX to capture him legally, the better.
I have zero sympathy for him. He was going through the courts, doing things legally, and spouting his mouth off. When he exhausted every possible appeal that way and STILL we found it legal to extradite him, he fled UK bail. My sympathy wasn't all that great for him all that time, anyway, but ended at that moment. The UK did its best to find a way out for him, but legally we are OBLIGED to hand him over, and we didn't just fabricate that law at the last moment for this case. That's the end of the matter.
And when he's released, he'll stand his charge of skipping bail, be extradited anyway, and then NOTHING will happen if what he says is true.
Assange is a troll, and a self-aggrandizing, narcissistic one at that. Everyone knows you don't feed trolls!!
Indeed, speaks volumes about our corrupted 'judges' doesn't it.
No it doesn't! Quite the opposite, the judges acted with the highest probity in this instance. Read the pertinent sentence in the summary again: "Mr Assange is, as a matter of law, currently a fugitive from justice, and it would therefore not be appropriate for judges to be addressed by him." Their participation would have been corrupt. [Emphasis added]
We cannot from this action determine if they have antipathy or sympathy for Assange and his cause. And that's just the point. On a purely personal basis they might support him as much as you or I. But they were there as judges and as such they are required to put aside their personal opinions and act as the ethics of their high office demands.
Better to be despised for too anxious apprehensions, than ruined by too confident a security. --Edmund Burke
Anyone with the least grasp of what a conflict of interest is, should know that, whatever the opinion of those judges, they did the professional thing to do: left a colloquial event in order to prevent influence of informal statements from a very likely candidate to be heard in their courts. Simple as that
There are examples enough that prove that mass-surveillance is hurting the public (i.e. swatting people over funny and misinterpreted facebook posts, reporters that where researching stuff, writers doing research...), I have yet to see evidence that the documents released by Edward Snowden actually hurting someone... And please don't tell me that the false positives are to neglect as we really need mass-surveillance to keep fighting the terrorist. By saying that you just as well may say: I'm a sheep and I give in to the politics of fear.
Did you read what the statement said?
It's nothing to do with him being "an alleged criminal", it's to do with him being currently a fugitive from justice. And they aren't "simply listening to them". They are attending a conference where he is addressing them.
I can't imagine any circumstances where it's ok for a wanted person to evade capture, while at the same time being given a platform to deliver a lecture to judges.
He is wanted in the UK for violating bail. Judges should only interact with criminals in the court where everything said is a matter of public record (and subject to strict accounting). Allowing judges to talk to criminals in other settings sounds like a good recipe for legalised bribery.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Assange isn't a fugitive on the basis of a charge regarding his involvements with Wikilieaks. He is a fugitive from an arrest warrant pertaining to a charge of rape. Whether he is guilty or innocent has yet to be determined by a court of law, hence the need for the judges to remain, and be seen to remain, entirely impartial. If those that have sympathy with him attend then and those that don't stay away than it guarantees him an unsympathetic judge if it ever comes to trial. That's not exactly in his best interest or the interest of justice in general. This is quite clearly the right thing to do, especially if those judges have any sympathy for Assange.
-- Gaxx