Edward Snowden Loses Norway Safe Passage Case (bbc.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from BBC: Edward Snowden's bid to guarantee that he would not be extradited to the U.S. if he visited Norway has been rejected by the Norwegian supreme court. The former spy contractor filed the lawsuit in April, attempting to secure safe passage to Norway to pick up a free speech award. It had already been rejected by Oslo District court and an appeals court. Mr Snowden's lawyers have previously said if he were extradited to the U.S., it would be "a foregone conclusion" that he would be convicted and jailed. Mr Snowden has been living in Russia, out of reach of the U.S. authorities, since the leaks in 2013. He had hoped to travel to Oslo to receive the Ossietzky Prize, for "outstanding efforts for freedom of expression." The award was due to be presented earlier this month. But the Norwegian Supreme Court said it could not rule on the legality of any move to extradite Mr Snowden as the U.S. had so far made no such request.

Comments

Re: Well duh!

[AuMatar]

It's a common view among European countries that the government is the current administration, and that the legislature and courts are separate entities.

Probably under seal

[mysidia]

the Norwegian Supreme Court said it could not rule on the legality of any move to extradite Mr Snowden as the U.S. had so far made no such request.

I would speculate the request order has already been made and approved under seal that prevents the courts even learning that it exists, unless the order becomes effective, which only happens if Snowden comes into the country for the cheese (the prize) and springs the trap designed to catch him.
Naturally, since it's not effective, it hasn't been unwrapped, thus there is no way to challenge it.

Also, i'm sure the order would activate and be executed so swiftly that by the time a challenge were even initiated, Snowden would already be in the US standing before the grand jury.

Re:Probably under seal

[Kjella]

A few points:

1) The "Ossietzky Prize" is awarded by an old organization of "Poets, Editors and Novelists" that have been fighting for freedom of speech for ages. There's not reason to believe that they're not genuine in their support of Snowden and the government could no more stop that than prevent employers naming the employee of the month. I doubt they're trying to trap Snowden and I doubt the legal system is trying to be intentionally obtuse, but when asked to preemptively rule on a hypothetical of what would happen when Snowden were to come to Norway and the US were to file an extradition request that's unreasonable. To say "No matter what charges and evidence the US has, we won't extradite" would be a far more political ruling than "No request has been made so we can't evaluate the merits until it's presented to us".

2) You have no idea how much the Norwegian legal system protects suspects and criminals, for example you could read the case of Mullah Krekar. Brief TL;DR summary: Leader of Islamic organization linked to terror, permanent expulsion order, declared a danger to national security, convicted to five years in prison for death threats but won't be expelled to Iraq where he's likely looking at a death sentence. Why? Because we don't extradite to any country where they might risk a death sentence. Looks like we might finally get rid of him now though since Italy wants him on terrorism charges and they don't have the death penalty. Another case is Anders Behring Breivik, the mass murderer who killed 77 people but the court ruled against the prison that his rights had been violated because the security regime had been insufficiently documented as necessary.

That said, Snowden's actions does seem to violate a lot of US law as written no matter his motivation. So as long as they pinky promise to avoid capital punishment and they dot the i's and cross the t's doing everything by the book, I also strongly doubt the court would say "but that aside it looks like you did it for all the right reasons, request denied". That would typically be for the legal system where he's being trialed to decide if the sentence should be reduced or commuted because of mitigating circumstances. Nor are they likely to shit list a modern western democracy by saying they don't think the US will give a fair trial, we don't even say that about dubious third world countries. He's been granted asylum by Russia because there Putin can simply decide, here we don't have any such authoritarian leaders that is likely to politically overrule the normal process. So while I don't think there's any malice involved, it might be best he stayed there.

Re:Well duh!

[Rei]

I don't know the procedure in Norway, but I assume it's similar to the Swedish one.

1) A request for extradition is received.
2) The court takes up the case.
3) In the proceedings, a (nonbinding) opinion from the government is sought.
4) The court rules, on their own about the case.
5) If the court blocks the extradition, the person may not be extradited.
6) If the court approves the extradition, the government may still block the extradition.
7) If both the court and government approve, then the person must be extradited.

The courts cannot rule on a request that they have not received, and the government is not allowed to usurp the courts by making pledges on a case that the court hasn't yet ruled on.

Snowden really should get used to the fact that he's not going anywhere until his case gets resolved.