U.K. Supreme Court to Rule on Assange Extradition Appeal

[stockholmer]

Source: Wired Magazine - Threat Level

After months of anticipation, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange will get a final ruling from a British court next Wednesday on his appeal of an extradition order to Sweden to face sex crimes allegations.

Assange, who has been under house arrest for a year and a half, asked the Supreme Court last February to overturn an order extraditing him to Sweden on grounds that the European arrest warrant issued against him was invalid because the Swedish prosecutor behind it was “working for the executive” and was therefore not a proper judicial authority, as the law requires. Swedish authorities have maintained that the arrest warrant was proper and valid because in the early stages of an investigation when an arrest is first being sought, judicial authorities do not have to be independent or impartial.

Should the seven justices of the Supreme Court agree with Sweden and uphold the extradition ruling, Assange will have one last chance to appeal to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France. Assange lost his initial fight against extradition last year, but appealed it before a High Court. That court rejected his appeal last November. http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/11/assange-extradition-ruling/

The Supreme Court agreed to hear his appeal of that verdict earlier this year. The case is significant because it could throw into question other extradition cases in the U.K. and elsewhere in Europe if the justices rule that the Swedish prosecutor was not a valid authority for requesting an arrest warrant. Assange has not been charged with any crime in Sweden, and used that fact as his primary defense in his earlier appeal to the High Court.


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Read more: http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/05/assange-extradition-appea/

[Manifestor_of_Light]

1. They couldn't file rape charges because the girls bragged.

They were groupies.

[happyslug]

2. I have to keep up on English Changes in their Appeal Courts..I still though appeal was to the Lords

Prior to 2009, the final court of appeals in the United Kingdom was to the Law Lords of the House of Lords. In 2009 the new final court of Appeals for the United Kingdom, the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom, came into existence. Prior to that the function of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom was performed by the Law Lords of the House or Lords.

In the distant past the House of Lords reserved to itself the right to hear all cases on appeal. This was seen as a function showing the superiority of Parliament over the Courts. In 1876 it was changed so that the only members of the House of Lords that actually heard and ruled on Cases on appeal were the "Law Lords".

The "Law Lords" sat in the House of Lords, were members of the House of Lords, but were appointed to act as a supreme court of the United Kingdom. This system worked for over 130 years, but Parliament decided to change it in 2005 do to the confusion it was causing. Some people NOT familiar with the system, thought the entire House of Lords acted as the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom, when it had not since 1876. Even member of the House of Lords found the role of the Law Lords confusing, for the Law Lords would sit in the House of Lords but would refuse to comment on any propose law that they may later have to rule on. Television added to this confusion, given the great emphasis in the US of its Supreme Court, as while as the existence of similar courts in other countries added to the confusion.

To solve these problems (Which many considered minor but serious enough to change) Parliament abolished the Law Lords (Actually made them all Supreme Court Judges) and formally moved the role of final court of appeals out of the House of Lords into the new UK Supreme Court. Thus since 2009 there is a Supreme Court of the United Kingdom for the first time ever.

For more on this change see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supreme_Court_of_the_United_Kingdom