{"id":155571,"date":"2020-03-02T12:01:49","date_gmt":"2020-03-02T12:01:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=155571"},"modified":"2020-02-29T07:40:59","modified_gmt":"2020-02-29T07:40:59","slug":"judge-rules-assange-cannot-sit-with-lawyers-during-extradition-hearing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2020\/03\/judge-rules-assange-cannot-sit-with-lawyers-during-extradition-hearing\/","title":{"rendered":"Judge Rules Assange Cannot Sit with Lawyers during Extradition Hearing"},"content":{"rendered":"

28 Feb 2020 – <\/em>The first week of the extradition hearing in USA v Julian Assange ended yesterday at Belmarsh Magistrates\u2019 Court with Judge Vanessa Baraitser rejecting a submission from Assange\u2019s lawyers that he be allowed to sit with them in court.<\/p>\n

Baraitser ruled Assange must remain in a bullet-proof glass-encased dock when the hearing resumes in May for the evidence phase of the hearing. Assange is fighting multiple indictments under the Espionage Act for exposing US war crimes, amid fears the Trump administration may seek the death penalty.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange -AP Photo\/Matt Dunham<\/div>\n

In their overnight submission to Baraitser following a defiant protest by Assange in court the previous day, his lawyers outlined several ways in which their client\u2019s right to a fair trial was being violated.<\/p>\n

These included: \u201ci) the physical layout of the court and the distance it places between Mr Assange and his legal team, ii) the high occupancy level of the court meaning that defence lawyers are unable to meet freely to receive instructions or impart advice, iii) the court\u2019s poor acoustics and amplification, especially behind glass and proximity to audible protests, iv) the security procedures in place in the dock at Woolwich Crown Court which do not permit the passing of notes and which inhibit confidential instruction taking, v) the limited access to legal visits outside of court sitting times during the court day and vi) Mr Assange\u2019s precarious psychiatric vulnerability, ongoing medication and the consequent elevated emotional strain of these proceedings of which the court is aware.\u201d<\/p>\n

Baraitser responded with undisguised malice, rejecting each of these concerns and telling Assange and his legal team, \u201cYou\u2019ve had no difficulty at all.\u201d<\/p>\n

Speaking to the submission, Mark Summers QC outlined the opinion of leading legal authorities, including the European Court of Human Rights, which had ruled that similar glass docks in Russia had violated defendants\u2019 fundamental due process rights.<\/p>\n

Such docks, isolating defendants from the body of the court, were of relatively recent origin in England. Introduced in the 1970s, they became established in their current form as a separate glass-enclosed room only in the early 2000s. In many other jurisdictions, including the United States, defendants, including those accused of violent crimes, sit with their lawyers in the court\u2014a crucial part of the presumption of innocence.<\/p>\n

Baraitser had claimed the previous day that she had no jurisdiction to allow Assange to sit with his legal team. Summers cited several precedents to the contrary, making clear that a district judge in the magistrates\u2019 court \u201chas an inherent common law power to control the conduct of proceedings before it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Baraitser had also objected that she would need to conduct a \u201crisk assessment\u201d in relation to Assange being allowed into the main body of the court. In their submission to Baraitser, Assange\u2019s lawyers explained that \u201cthis court is neither invited nor required to carry out any \u2018risk assessment\u2019 of Mr Assange\u2019s presence in the well of the court.\u201d<\/p>\n

Summers told Baraitser, \u201cIn terrorism cases in which counsel in this case have been involved, category AA prisoners have given evidence in the well of this very courtroom for weeks.\u201d Assange is a category B low-risk prisoner.<\/p>\n

Baraitser had also claimed that the chain of custody would be breached if Assange were allowed in the well of the court, even asking Assange\u2019s defence whether a bail request was being made. Summers dispelled this deliberate obfuscation, citing precedents which made clear that \u201ccustody\u201d applied to any place in the court building in which the defendant was under the control of prison staff: \u201cOnce in custody there is no more magic to the court dock than there is to say, the Belmarsh-Woolwich tunnel or a court transport vehicle.\u201d<\/p>\n

The submission made by Assange\u2019s legal team left no room for ambiguity: Assange\u2019s due process rights are being violated and his right to a fair trial denied. But Baraitser was determined to deny Summers\u2019 every point. Despite conceding that she had jurisdiction to rule on court procedure, she flatly refused to allow Assange to sit with his lawyers. Rattling off a pre-prepared response to the defence submission, she concluded by declaring, \u201cI\u2019m not aware of any particular aspect of your condition that requires you to leave the dock and sit next to your legal team.\u201d<\/p>\n

This was a flat-out lie. Only three days prior, Assange\u2019s lawyers had quoted in court the medical opinions <\/a>of Professor Kopelman and Dr Sondra Crosby who submitted that Assange had severe depression, was in a fragile state and was at risk of death if extradited. Baraitser had told the court just the previous day that Assange was medicated and was having trouble concentrating.<\/p>\n

Earlier yesterday, arguments continued over the definition of political offences and the bar on extradition for political offences stipulated in the Anglo-US Extradition Treaty.<\/p>\n

The defence has argued that espionage is widely regarded as a \u201cpure political offence\u201d, automatically barring any extradition on these charges.<\/p>\n

Prosecuting barrister James Lewis QC claimed in response that \u201cthere is no bright line test\u201d for what constitutes a \u201cpure\u201d political offence under English law. In deciding whether an offence is political, he said, \u201cOne always has to look at the purpose of the crime.\u201d<\/p>\n

The test that must be applied is whether the conduct had \u201cthe object of overthrowing or changing the government or inducing it to change its policy.\u201d According to the prosecution, what Assange is accused of \u201cdoes not come within a million miles of that definition.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lewis claimed the question of whether the conduct alleged in the indictment of Assange constitutes a political offence is irrelevant. Restating the prosecution\u2019s opening argument, he said that since the Extradition Act (2003) had removed the political offences exception contained in the superseded 1989 Extradition Act and the 1870 Extradition Act before it, Assange cannot claim its protection.<\/p>\n

Directly addressing the absurdity of this legal position, defence lawyer Edward Fitzgerald QC said, \u201cJust stepping back for a moment, we\u2019re in a pretty strange Alice in Wonderland world\u2026 it\u2019s a very bizarre argument\u2026that a treaty which controls and gives rise to the request has got nothing to do with the lawfulness of the request or its pursuit.\u201d<\/p>\n

Contrary to the prosecution\u2019s claims that the 2003 Act is the final word on the matter, Fitzgerald demonstrated how it had repeatedly \u201cbeen shown to be far from comprehensive\u2026 parliament can never envisage all the circumstances that will arise.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a remedy\u201d available through the rulings of the courts, said Fitzgerald, \u201cit doesn\u2019t come from the words of the Act\u2026 it\u2019s read in as a principle of public international law.\u201d<\/p>\n

Speaking on the definition of a political offence, Fitzgerald drove home the fact that, even on the prosecution\u2019s own terms, the allegations against Assange are expressly political.<\/p>\n

Baraitser challenged Fitzgerald, asking why Assange\u2019s alleged actions were seeking to induce a change in government policy and were not instead about exposing government information. Fitzgerald answered, \u201cThe two are intimately connected\u2026 The Rules of Engagement were published to show that war crimes were being committed that breached their own Rules of Engagement.\u201d<\/p>\n

This was, he said, \u201cthe very definition of seeking to induce a government to change its policy\u2026 What other purpose could there be?\u201d Fitzgerald noted, \u201cWikiLeaks didn\u2019t just seek to induce a change, it did affect a change. It was one of the key reasons why policy was changed and why there was a withdrawal [from Iraq].\u201d<\/p>\n

The extradition hearing will resume on May 18. A brief administrative hearing will take place at Westminster Magistrates\u2019 Court on 25th March, 10am, and a case management hearing has been scheduled at Woolwich Crown Court on 7th April, 10am.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Kristinn Hrafnsson<\/p><\/div>\n

<\/div>\n

Speaking after the hearing, WikiLeaks editor-in-chief Kristin Hrafnsson addressed the media: \u201cIt ended with a great disappointment and an outrage when the judge decided, despite overwhelming arguments on behalf of Julian, that he would not be able to step out of the glass cage and sit with his lawyers when the hearings recommence in May. I say it\u2019s an outrage because his lawyers presented rulings from the European Court of Human Rights, in Strasbourg, where it was ruled that in similar circumstances it was totally against the principles of fair trial to keep an individual in a glass cage.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is an outrage that after a presentation from his lawyers of almost an hour, for this nonviolent intellectual to sit with his lawyers in the court room, the judge read out a pre-written ruling.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo once more after these four days, we get a strong indication that this is not a fair trial. Julian will not get any fairness out of this court and I am absolutely outraged. We\u2019ve heard examples that everywhere all around the world it is a common practice, out of dignity and fairness, that a defendant sits with his lawyer.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven in America accused murderers sit beside their lawyers in a court room without shackles. In this instance, we\u2019re talking about a publisher and a journalist fighting extradition who is put in a glass cage. It\u2019s impossible for him to have a fair trial in this condition and [with] the obvious bias of the judge in this case.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe week has now come to an end on this bleak note and it does not give us any hope that there is any fairness to be found in this court.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Jennifer Robinson<\/p><\/div>\n

<\/div>\n

Jennifer Robinson, a leading member of Assange\u2019s legal team, told the media, \u201cAs you\u2019ve heard this afternoon, Mr Assange is having significant difficulties in participating with these proceedings. He\u2019s unable to pass notes in a confidential and secure way to his legal team, he\u2019s unable to seek clarification from his legal team and give instruction during the course of the proceedings, and the judge has refused his ability to leave the dock to be able to participate properly. This obviously raises serious concerns about his fair trial rights and his ability to properly participate and defend himself.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis week has been really important in laying down the defence case. Finally, you\u2019re hearing how the US indictment has misrepresented the facts in order to be able to justify his extradition to the US. And this of course in a case which is unprecedented: the first ever time the extradition act has been used against a publisher. He\u2019s being sought for extradition for having published evidence of war crimes, human rights abuse, corruption the world over.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe heard this week that WikiLeaks published this material after Chelsea Manning gave it because it was, as she said in her own trial in the US, because of her own conscience, because of the war crimes she\u2019d seen in the material she exposed.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis case is setting a terrible precedent for press freedoms. We\u2019re very concerned about the process given what we\u2019ve heard today. And it\u2019s important that we follow these developments leading into May.\u201d<\/p>\n

Go to Original – wsws.org<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

28 Feb 2020 – The first week of the extradition hearing in USA v Julian Assange ended yesterday at Belmarsh Magistrates\u2019 Court with Judge Vanessa Baraitser rejecting a submission from Assange\u2019s lawyers that he be allowed to sit with them in court.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":154782,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[225],"tags":[229,918,910,942,487,378,651,234,911,454,572,639,292,70,126,921,113],"class_list":["post-155571","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-spotlight","tag-activism","tag-assange","tag-big-brother","tag-ecuador","tag-human-rights","tag-journalism","tag-justice","tag-media","tag-surveillance","tag-sweden","tag-torture","tag-uk","tag-un","tag-usa","tag-violence","tag-whistleblowing","tag-wikileaks"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155571","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=155571"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155571\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/154782"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=155571"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=155571"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=155571"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}