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Legal myths about the Assange extradition

newstatesman.com

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Re: Legal myths about the Assange extradition

#151

Post by rmc »

freehunter wrote: post #68
tomjakubowski wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Under what insane set of morals or laws is having sex with an unconscious person not considered rape?

Well non-consensual doesn't necessarily imply unconscious. There are levels of force that could be considered rape, although some countries has laws on the books saying only women can be raped. I don't want look that up for proof at the moment, as I'm sitting at work.

> Well non-consensual doesn't necessarily imply unconscious

Correct. But non-consensual means rape.

Re: Legal myths about the Assange extradition

#152

Post by rmc »

thom wrote: post #26
marvin wrote: post #16

I don't want to be a tinfoil hat conspiracy nut and make unsubstantiated claims here, so I'm a bit hesitant to voice these thoughts. But legal issues or not: You need to have blind trust in the well-meaning efforts of national governments to believe that there aren't larger forces at work here than Swedish prosecutors wanting to charge Assange with rape. This is not the kind of high-profile violent crime that would l…

As a general gauge, I think a lot of people are hugely offended by the idea that some forms of non-consensual sex aren't rape.

I am offended by the ideal that there are people who think non-consensual sex doesn' count as rape.

What's next? "Some forms of non-consenting taking of property shouldn't count as theft", etc.

Re: Legal myths about the Assange extradition

#153

Post by rmc »

tomjakubowski wrote: post #49
thom wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a general gauge, I think a lot of people are hugely offended by the idea that some forms of non-consensual sex aren't rape.

Under what insane set of morals or laws is having sex with an unconscious person not considered rape?

If you believe that men are now being prosecuted and hounded by all those nasty nasty feminists who just want to castrate all men.

It's just another conspiracy theory, like the Jews did 9/11 and Obama is a secret muslim. Nutcases.

Re: Legal myths about the Assange extradition

#154

Post by tptacek »

brudgers wrote: post #149
tptacek wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The precedent that you are referring to here is what? That Assange, as a foreign head of state, is immune to extradition?

I believe the precedent being cited is that the general welfare may be more important than black letter law.

I'm pretty sure that's not a precedent set by the failure to extradite Pinochet, who was a genocidal tyrant.

Re: Legal myths about the Assange extradition

#155

Post by Kell »

toyg wrote: post #138
Kell wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huh ? Where ? I've seen one intent to show it's untrue (in this thread) and honestly the arguments where bogus. I don't know Swedish law at all. But actually in French law (my domain of study) in a criminal case assigned to a "Juge d'instruction" (who acts more or less like a prosecutor), no indictment ("mise en examen") is possible without a physical presentation to the "Juge d'Instruction". So I know of at least On…

Yes, and the EU court determined that such a requirement does not waive the right to appeal a sentence. Which means somebody can actually be charged in absentia without legal repercussions, so it doesn't really matter whether they're present or not. From what I've heard, France is currently changing its system to reflect these rulings. Btw, your own appeal to authority is pointless: I'm sure the courts of China are a…

I'm not sure about what you're saying... but if you're saying that the fact that ECHR considers judgments in absentia to be of no legal repercussions... means that a State can pursue charges in absentia even more easily... well... I think, in my understanding of Law, that you are wrong. It means that pursuing charges in absentia... is of no legal repercussions (duh). So the accused is entitled a right to a full fresh re-trial... not an appeal. Because it's like if nothing was done. That's why States try to avoid this... It's waste of ressources, because a sentence is of no use... Anyway there is going to be a full retrial of the first instance.

And there is a lot of things changing in French procedural law... but this is not changing. Judges of Instructions are not considered against ECHR and the rule that make it a requiremnt to present a suspect before the judge before any indictment... is actually more respectful of ECHR law than otherwise (see. 5.3 of the European convention on Human Rights).

And btw you know, China is not the UK or Sweden...

Oh and please ? Are you serious about the "adopting names from the US System" isn't that a proof of submission !" No it's not...

Re: Legal myths about the Assange extradition

#156

Post by e12e »

mattvanhorn wrote: post #31
e12e wrote: post #20

I'll be a little impolite and reuse my comment on a previous, somewhat similar story: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4404549 I think it contains some information that is relevant for those trying to make sense of this: I found this overview from the Swedish prosecutor to be very helpful: http://www.aklagare.se/In-English/Media/The-Assange-Matter/T... Obviously this is "biased" -- but I've not been able to spot a…

Virginia Woolf died in 1941, so either the piece must be really old, or you must mean Naomi Wolf. ;-)

Ouch, good catch.

I did of course mean Naomi. Apologies to both Wolves.

You'd think I'd actually look at the byline while I checked the link was the correct one -- oh well.

Re: Legal myths about the Assange extradition

#157

Post by philwelch »

Karunamon wrote: post #84
philwelch wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kim Dotcom's situation isn't that unusual. To whatever extent law enforcement overstepped their bounds, due process will eventually prevail. He's still in New Zealand after all.

>To whatever extent law enforcement overstepped their bounds, due process will eventually prevail. You have a lot more faith in the infallibility of our justice system that I do. For example: http://www.change.org/freedaniel

Not at all, it's just nothing that unusual.

Re: Legal myths about the Assange extradition

#158

Post by marvin »

tptacek wrote: post #125
marvin wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To answer your question about the article itself, some of its points are good. Point one ("the charges would not be rape under UK law") and point four ("Sweden could try Assange in London") seem both good and relevant. But like I said, they don't seem to have a lot of influence on the heart of the matter in this case. And I don't think it makes sense to discuss the other points without looking at the whole picture. T…

Ecuador is trying (a) to piss off the US and (b) to rally political support within Ecuador based on a phony issue, so as to avoid attention to Ecuador's very real problems with repression. The idea that Ecuador (of all countries) would be taking a principaled stand against repression is actually the one that beggars belief, based on the recent history of the Correa administration.

That's an interesting piece of information I wasn't aware of. Wish the news media was smart enough to dig into things to uncover stuff like this.

Re: Legal myths about the Assange extradition

#159

Post by philwelch »

tomelders wrote: post #124
tptacek wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, this is just completely wrong. Sweden, under the ECHR, cannot extradite people to face the death penalty either.

Oh, that's right, I forgot about the European Convention on Human Rights, I was too distracted by Sweden's consitent breaking of the rules by performing extraordinary renditions on Americas behalf. But yeah, your probably right, there's no way Sweden will break the rules this time.

Extradition and rendition are two completely different things. If the CIA wants to rendition Assange, it'll just happen. It's an extrajudicial process more akin to kidnapping than anything else. If anything, the arrest warrant would just get in the way. It's hard to disappear people out of western European jails--easier to just grab him off the street, be it in London or Quito.

If the US wants Assange extradited, they would have to play by the rules. And the rules don't help at all if Assange is in Sweden.

Re: Legal myths about the Assange extradition

#160

Post by Riesling »

tptacek wrote: post #50
Tycho wrote: post #47

It's touching that the author of this article thinks the only relevant points are the legal small print of the UK and Sweden. But if you think about it some more, you might realise that Assange chose the UK as his destination because he felt the public and the press would exert enough pressure on the government to shield him from any political manoeuvrings. I propose a new metric for situations like this. Rate the li…

We could invent a "new metric for situations like this" involving estimates of the "likelihood" that suspects would "commit the act" and estimates of "the convenience of the situation to the enemies of those suspects" and the "ease with which the suspect's enemies could set them up". Or we could just have the rule of law.

I would not make the mistake of trusting the law per se.

Law is far from being deterministic. It is merely a framework used for discussing concrete events.

This is what drove me away from studying law after having done it for three full years. You have all those reasonable and just rules that get thrown over board (by re-interpreting them or bending the meaning of words) as soon as they collide with a greater purpose.

As someone who has switched sides let me tell you of how lucky we can be that in computer science a zero is a zero and a one is a one.

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