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This fell into a broader question of whether the Extradition Act 2003 has to be enforced notwithstanding the terms of the extradition treaty. The treaty refers

This fell into a broader question of whether the Extradition Act 2003 has to be enforced notwithstanding the terms of the extradition treaty. The treaty refers to political offences; the Act does not. The answer to this question was yes, the Act is self-contained. Therefore the judge did not need to decide the question of whether it was a political offence. So she did not discuss it or decide the question. You are correct in a way -- judges do not decide issues that do not need to be decided, and things they do say about those issues are ignored, so yes, she omitted to discuss it. But you couldn't say she "sided with US prosecutors" on whether it was a political offence or not. If you put that language in the Extradition Act, then you would get a decision on it. It's not so much "chilling for investigative journalism" as a deficiency in the Act itself not accounting for the particular US-UK treaty language or the US' categorisation under the Act that should reflect its recent anti-democratic bent.

baybal2 6y ago
> You are correct in a way -- judges do not decide issues that do not need to be decided, and things they do say about those issues are ignored, so yes, she omitted to discuss it. And that's a bad thing as it leaves the case more or less open to US side coming up with "We promise to put him in some VIP jail with blackjack, and hookers," and more opportunities for retrials for state attorney to attack weaker defense arguments one at a time. Having the extradition flopped as political, would've closed the door on it for good.
- cormacrelf 6y ago
  Are you saying she should have discussed it anyway? Just lob up an opinion from the magi court on a searing hot political issue regarding which according to her own reasoning anything she says isn’t binding whatsoever? Yeah, she totally could have “flopped” the extradition by doing that lol There’s a difference, as I’m sure you’re now aware having stopped accusing her of being extremely suspect, between judgments that are simply annoying for your team, and producing utterly biased, pre-decided results that match the tie of the President that nominated you. You’ll find that the former happened here, and the latter isn’t nearly as big a problem in the UK as you seem to have assumed to be the case.
  - Bodell 6y ago
    To be fair there was quite a lot of lobbing of opinions as it pertained to his guilt and ability to be prosecuted. Including: “This conduct would amount to offences in English law” and many , many other statements outlining exactly why she thought asking for information and publishing it would be considered aiding and abetting in espionage. I only got about 40 pages of skimming in, the documents is 130+ pages, but the vast majority of it was related to way the charges are felt to be appropriate in his case and very little evidence from the defense other than their broad objections.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - dragonwriter 6y ago
      > To be fair there was quite a lot of lobbing of opinions as it pertained to his guilt and ability to be prosecuted. There's a difference between legally meaningful findings and lobbing opinion on legally non-germane questions. > Including: “This conduct would amount to offences in English law” That's a determination the court is called on to make in an extradition case under Section 137 of the Extradition Act.
      - Bodell 6y ago
        I think maybe that determining the defense's evidence as not "legally meaning findings" constitutes an a opinion of some kind, even if only through exclusion. I mean 130 pages on why he is guilty does not quite say: We were only interested in making a mental health determination as some of the comments seem to suggest. Then again, maybe there is much more there that I did not read or understand properly. The conduct being refereed to is part of the issue many people are having here. As the defense argued the conduct is that of an investigative journalist. If such conduct constitutes an offense in the law, then some are worried that there is precedent to charge a wider range of conduct then previously though possible. Weather this is true or not remains to be seen I guess. Either way its a meaningful determination that this judge made.
DiogenesKynikos 6y ago
It's just bizarre that the terms of the extradition treaty, which explicitly bars extradition for political offenses, would be irrelevant. If the terms of the treaty don't matter, then what's the basis for extraditing Assange in the first place?
- cormacrelf 6y ago
  The basis is the Extradition Act, which according to the judgment is a self-contained implementation of a bunch of different extradition treaties. Hypothetically, let’s say the statute actually had a section with “no extraditions for unsavoury offences” in it. That’s pretty weird and ambiguous, so you might, subject to UK law on statutory interpretation, look to the treaty/treaties the Act is implementing to figure out what the legislature meant by unsavoury when they wrote it. Maybe a bunch of treaties had similar provisions using the word unsavoury, but the US one changed it, and you would analyse why they didn’t use the language again, or whether political offences as referred to by the US treaty would fit the bill... But according to the judgment, the Act is not ambiguous. There is nothing to look to the treaty for. Still, the basis for the extradition is not the treaty. Treaties bind States (ie countries) against each other. The remedy for a treaty law breach is stern words from the UN, maybe a fine, whatever. But treaty law cannot establish domestic laws that govern things like extradition. The only requirement imposed by the treaty is on the UK as a State to implement the treaty in domestic law, which is how countries like the UK comply with the terms of the treaty. International law does not bind local decision makers who decide whether the extradition goes ahead. It also does not bind parliament, which can refuse to implement a treaty or decide to deviate from it. It should also be quite plain that Assange is not a State party to the extradition agreement, being neither the literal United States nor Kingdom, so he does not have standing to object to the UK’s implementation, and of course, is in utterly the wrong court for that :) (That the UK is bound to comply makes for a strong suggestion that parliament actually intended to be true to the treaty when they implemented it, but this is only relevant where there is ambiguity in the domestic law requiring resolution, because of the primacy of legislative power and its ability to write laws in clear terms that can’t be wriggled out of.)
  - DiogenesKynikos 6y ago

baybal2 6y ago

> You are correct in a way -- judges do not decide issues that do not need to be decided, and things they do say about those issues are ignored, so yes, she omitted to discuss it. And that's a bad thing as it leaves the case more or less open to US side coming up with "We promise to put him in some VIP jail with blackjack, and hookers," and more opportunities for retrials for state attorney to attack weaker defense arguments one at a time. Having the extradition flopped as political, would've closed the door on it for good.

cormacrelf 6y ago
Are you saying she should have discussed it anyway? Just lob up an opinion from the magi court on a searing hot political issue regarding which according to her own reasoning anything she says isn’t binding whatsoever? Yeah, she totally could have “flopped” the extradition by doing that lol There’s a difference, as I’m sure you’re now aware having stopped accusing her of being extremely suspect, between judgments that are simply annoying for your team, and producing utterly biased, pre-decided results that match the tie of the President that nominated you. You’ll find that the former happened here, and the latter isn’t nearly as big a problem in the UK as you seem to have assumed to be the case.
- Bodell 6y ago
  To be fair there was quite a lot of lobbing of opinions as it pertained to his guilt and ability to be prosecuted. Including: “This conduct would amount to offences in English law” and many , many other statements outlining exactly why she thought asking for information and publishing it would be considered aiding and abetting in espionage. I only got about 40 pages of skimming in, the documents is 130+ pages, but the vast majority of it was related to way the charges are felt to be appropriate in his case and very little evidence from the defense other than their broad objections.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - dragonwriter 6y ago
    > To be fair there was quite a lot of lobbing of opinions as it pertained to his guilt and ability to be prosecuted. There's a difference between legally meaningful findings and lobbing opinion on legally non-germane questions. > Including: “This conduct would amount to offences in English law” That's a determination the court is called on to make in an extradition case under Section 137 of the Extradition Act.
    - Bodell 6y ago
      I think maybe that determining the defense's evidence as not "legally meaning findings" constitutes an a opinion of some kind, even if only through exclusion. I mean 130 pages on why he is guilty does not quite say: We were only interested in making a mental health determination as some of the comments seem to suggest. Then again, maybe there is much more there that I did not read or understand properly. The conduct being refereed to is part of the issue many people are having here. As the defense argued the conduct is that of an investigative journalist. If such conduct constitutes an offense in the law, then some are worried that there is precedent to charge a wider range of conduct then previously though possible. Weather this is true or not remains to be seen I guess. Either way its a meaningful determination that this judge made.

DiogenesKynikos 6y ago

It's just bizarre that the terms of the extradition treaty, which explicitly bars extradition for political offenses, would be irrelevant. If the terms of the treaty don't matter, then what's the basis for extraditing Assange in the first place?

cormacrelf 6y ago
The basis is the Extradition Act, which according to the judgment is a self-contained implementation of a bunch of different extradition treaties. Hypothetically, let’s say the statute actually had a section with “no extraditions for unsavoury offences” in it. That’s pretty weird and ambiguous, so you might, subject to UK law on statutory interpretation, look to the treaty/treaties the Act is implementing to figure out what the legislature meant by unsavoury when they wrote it. Maybe a bunch of treaties had similar provisions using the word unsavoury, but the US one changed it, and you would analyse why they didn’t use the language again, or whether political offences as referred to by the US treaty would fit the bill... But according to the judgment, the Act is not ambiguous. There is nothing to look to the treaty for. Still, the basis for the extradition is not the treaty. Treaties bind States (ie countries) against each other. The remedy for a treaty law breach is stern words from the UN, maybe a fine, whatever. But treaty law cannot establish domestic laws that govern things like extradition. The only requirement imposed by the treaty is on the UK as a State to implement the treaty in domestic law, which is how countries like the UK comply with the terms of the treaty. International law does not bind local decision makers who decide whether the extradition goes ahead. It also does not bind parliament, which can refuse to implement a treaty or decide to deviate from it. It should also be quite plain that Assange is not a State party to the extradition agreement, being neither the literal United States nor Kingdom, so he does not have standing to object to the UK’s implementation, and of course, is in utterly the wrong court for that :) (That the UK is bound to comply makes for a strong suggestion that parliament actually intended to be true to the treaty when they implemented it, but this is only relevant where there is ambiguity in the domestic law requiring resolution, because of the primacy of legislative power and its ability to write laws in clear terms that can’t be wriggled out of.)
- DiogenesKynikos 6y ago