nuclear-news

Judges Named for Assange Appeal

By Joe Lauria / Consortium News June 14, 2024,  https://consortiumnews.com/2024/06/14/judges-named-for-assange-appeal/

Consortium News will be back inside the courtroom in London July 9-10 to cover Julian Assange’s appeal against extradition

The judges in Julian Assange’s two-day appeal hearing on July 9-10 are the same who granted Assange a rare victory last month:  his right to appeal the Home Office’s extradition order to the United States. 

Justices Jeremy Johnson and Victoria Sharp granted Assange the right to appeal on only two of nine requested grounds, but they are significant:

1). his extradition was incompatible with his free speech rights enshrined in the European Convention on Human Rights; and 2.) that he might be prejudiced because of his nationality (not being given 1st Amendment protection as a non-American).

However the denial of his rights in an American courtroom would go beyond the First Amendment to all of his U.S. constitutional rights, according to the 2020 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in USAID v. Alliance for Open Society International Inc., which says that a non-U.S. citizen acting outside the U.S. has no constitutional protections at all. 

The United States was unable to provide assurances that the European equivalent of his constitutional rights would be protected, required under British extradition law. That raises hopes for Assange in his appeal. 

Assange has been imprisoned in London’s notorious Belmarsh Prison for more than five years on remand pending the outcome of his extradition.  He has been charged in the United States for publishing classified documents that revealed prima facie evidence of U.S. state crimes.

CN has received an award and many accolades for our coverage of the Julian Assange case. We will be inside the courtroom and outside the Royal Courts of Justice in London for both days of the hearing, bringing you the latest news, analysis and commentary. 

June 17, 2024 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Legal, UK