If the government can see beforehand that they would not agree to extradition, I think it's just a waste of money to ask the courts whether it would be legal.

If the government can see beforehand that they would not agree to extradition, I think it's just a waste of money to ask the courts whether it would be legal. There's nothing legally stopping the Swedish government, at best notions of procedural propriety that are not binding. Truth is even so, ministries meddle with the departments - or are accused of it, with varying degrees of reasonableness - all the time. When the case against Assange was revived (the first prosecutor dismissed it in unusually clear terms), that was as I see it far more pernicious meddling than pre-rejecting extradition of a political refugee would be.