Thread: Judge approves Assange extradition

Originally Posted by larvidchr

It is not Politicians in Sweden who decides who is going to jail or not, or who is to be extradited or not, but an independent Judiciary and Law, besides the Swedes can not know from where or what or if some kind of valid extradition requests suddenly might crop up, it could be other sexual crimes, fraud with wikileaks funds etc etc etc etc.

So with a bit of clever manipulation the Swedes get to look unreasonable to people not thinking this through.

Sweden could never offer such a guarantee to anyone, Swedish Politicians do not have the authority to do so, and no (Swedish) Judge would ever rule in advance on cases not yet existing, it would not be legal and it would be in contradiction with their signed agreements with other Nations.

An update on who actually decides, in Sweden, if a person can be extradited. It appears that the request is initially decided by the Swedish legal authorities whether "legally" a person can be extradited against a particular request.

However the Swedish government, after receiving the legal authorities decision, take the final decision and can deny or grant the request. There also appears to be an appeal procedure to the Swedish Supreme Court. I am not sure if that is before or after the government decision is taken.

The bizarre, unhealthy, blinding media contempt for Julian Assange | Glenn Greenwald | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk


"UPDATE: Numerous people objected that I too readily conceded the point that Swedish courts, rather than the Swedish government, are the ultimate decision-makers on extradition requests, and the Swedish government therefore cannot provide Assange with a guarantee that he will not be extradited to the U.S. This article by a lawyer -- who fervently believes that Assange should be extradited to Sweden -- makes the case very compellingly that the Swedish government most certainly can provide such a guarantee if it chose to [my emphasis]:

Extradition procedures are typically of a mixed nature, where courts and governments share the final decision – it is not unknown for governments to reject an extradition request in spite of court verdict allowing it. . . .

Article 12 [of Sweden's extradition law] adds that the government may put conditions on its decision to accept an extradition request. The deciding body is thus the government, with an input by the Prosecutor general and a veto right given to the Supreme Court in case where the requested person doesn't accept to be extradited.

The article goes on to cite the Swedish extradition law to outline two possible outcomes where the target of an extradition request challenges its validity:

(1) the Swedish supreme court rules that extradition is not legally permissible, in which case the Swedish government is not free to extradite;

(2) the Swedish supreme court rules that extradition is legally permissible, in which case the Swedish government is free to decide that it will not extradite for policy or other prudential reasons.

In other words, the Swedish judiciary has the right to block an extradition request on legal grounds, but it lacks the power to compel extradition; if the courts approve of the legal basis, the Swedish government still retains the authority to decide if extradition should take place."