Owen Jones on Julian Assange

[Dave2002]

Now you're getting me curious. I realise that I don't know nearly enough about legal systems. I have lived in both the USA and Sweden. The US system is I believe fairly similar to that in the UK, with jury trials. The Swedish system is a form of civil law. Now I realise that I had no detailed knowledge of how Swedish courts and the legal system there works. Mostly I felt it worked OK, as far as I could tell, but maybe they don't use juries. I am, rather sadly, ignorant of how things work there, despite having lived there for several years.

I suspect that some people here know a lot more about different legal systems.

[ahinton]

Whereas the use of a ducking stool in a ducking pond was exclusively for women, y'see

I canardly believe it...

[amateur51]

I canardly believe it...

It's not too late to bring it back exclusively for bad punsters, y'know

[ahinton]

Oh come on, Gorgeous George is a refreshing maverick of the modern 'radical' Left. Let's hear more of him! None of this nonsensical and stultifying feminist dogma for a wee Dundee laddie-of-the-world like GG, eh?

Frankly, I neither know nor care. What relevance is the position to which he clings on the left-to-right party-political pendulum to his willingness overtly to declare that he doesn't believe Assange's accusers without bothering himself to procure and investigate all the available evidence first? Who would trust someone like that to represent them in his capacity as MP?

He's hopelessly wrong about Mr Assange, though (imho) ... but then again he's always been very strongly in the anti-US camp on the Left ... so what an opportunity for him to attempt to smack two huge and personally irritating birds with one tiny little stone!

Opportunities, even if seized, do not always result in success. Apart from the fact that people who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones in the first place, it's an even sillier thing to do when you miss. If an elected MP's take on the justice system of a democratic EU nation state is such that he thinks his opinion of such accusations is both justifiable and more important than the due process of law, he and his electors should consider questioning his entitlement to hold office, frankly.

And what has "stultifying feminist dogma" to do with accusations of sexual assault, particularly when the making of such accusations is equally opn to males and females?

Perhaps he should consider possibly renaming his party in the light of his ill-judged - no, sorry, non-judged - remarks.

[ahinton]

Naomi Wolf says:

"Based on my 23 years of reporting on global rape law, and my five years of supporting women at rape crisis centers and battered women’s shelters, I can say with certainty that this case is not being treated as a normal rape or sexual assault case"

... in this article: http://markcrispinmiller.com/2011/02...by-naomi-wolf/

which at least suggests that various irregularities in the way the rape allegations have been pursued might point towards something more sinister, although it's hard to see why Assange wouldn't already have used these arguments if they're as convincing as Naomi Wolf seems to think they are.

Perhaps he's lapsing into sense here by keeping his thoughts on that in reserve (albeit uncharacteristically) because he has yet to be charged; in any case, he's in no position to "use" such arguments until he has been charged, other than in what would be the unedifying spectacle of trying to defend himself publicly against accusations which have yet to turn into criminal charges.

[amateur51]

Frankly, I neither know nor care. What relevance is the position to which he clings on the left-to-right party-political pendulum to his willingness overtly to declare that he doesn't believe Assange's accusers without bothering himself to procure and investigate all the available evidence first? Who would trust someone like that to represent them in his capacity as MP?


Opportunities, even if seized, do not always result in success. Apart from the fact that people who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones in the first place, it's an even sillier thing to do when you miss. If an elected MP's take on the justice system of a democratic EU nation state is such that he thinks his opinion of such accusations is both justifiable and more important than the due process of law, he and his electors should consider questioning his entitlement to hold office, frankly.

And what has "stultifying feminist dogma" to do with accusations of sexual assault, particularly when the making of such accusations is equally opn to males and females?

Perhaps he should consider possibly renaming his party in the light of his ill-judged - no, sorry, non-judged - remarks.

well put, ahinton :PdC:*





*I'm reminded that you don't care for , ahinton, so I've suggested pineau de charentes instead - suitably chilled, of course

[ahinton]

It's not too late to bring it back exclusively for bad punsters, y'know

Maybe not, although (a) I remain to be convinced that it would be exempt from incompatibility with European Human Rights legislation and (b) one would, in today's hopefully more "enlightened" times, assume in any case that even a bad punster is entitled to his day in court rather than mere accusation of him being deemed to represent a charge and conviction, as is implicit in some of the commentary about Assange (remember him?!). Anyway, I would consider its reinstatement and use to be an unacceptably drake-onian measure.

[ahinton]

well put, ahinton :PdC:*





*I'm reminded that you don't care for , ahinton, so I've suggested pineau de charentes instead - suitably chilled, of course

Ooh, très, très jolie! Merci bien!

That said, quelle demi-monde is it that appears to have no specific emoticon for that glorious liquid?(!)...

[amateur51]

an unacceptably drake-onian measure.

Take him down Mr Henderson and book an appointment for him with Snr Torquemada, would you

[Pabmusic]

Now you're getting me curious. I realise that I don't know nearly enough about legal systems. I have lived in both the USA and Sweden. The US system is I believe fairly similar to that in the UK, with jury trials. The Swedish system is a form of civil law. Now I realise that I had no detailed knowledge of how Swedish courts and the legal system there works. Mostly I felt it worked OK, as far as I could tell, but maybe they don't use juries. I am, rather sadly, ignorant of how things work there, despite having lived there for several years.

I suspect that some people here know a lot more about different legal systems.

Please don't be concerned, but do be curious. People don't usually have to think about these things (thank goodness!), but I did work in the UK criminal justice system from 1976 until I retired in 2009. I'm no expert on Sweden, and some things I say about their system are assumptions, but the Common Law -v- Civil Law split could be read as 'Anglo-Saxon' -v- The Other Europeans. There are real differences (jury trials, for instance, originated with the Anglo-Saxons, and are now mainly found in the UK, USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the like). In Europe, it's mainly Civil Law, often dating from the Code Napoleon. But this is terribly simplistic.

It has meant a real difference historically. Torture was a legitimate practice under Civil Law, because a person usually couldn't be convicted without either two witnesses or a confession. Torture was never sanctioned under the Common Law (though that didn't stop its unlawful use by powerful monarchs, of course). There's a letter from Pope Clement V to Edward II, saying (in modern English) "We hear you forbid torture as being contrary to the laws of your land; but no state can override Canon Law, Our Law; therefore I command you at once to submit these men to torture...You have already imperilled your soul as a favourer of heretics...Withdraw your prohibition and we grant you remission of sins". That's the pope ordering an English king to disobey English law on pain of damnation!

[ahinton]

Take him down Mr Henderson and book an appointment for him with Snr Torquemada, would you

And try to Torquemada writing like this, yes?...

[ahinton]

Please don't be concerned, but do be curious. People don't usually have to think about these things (thank goodness!), but I did work in the UK criminal justice system from 1976 until I retired in 2009. I'm no expert on Sweden, and some things I say about their system are assumptions, but the Common Law -v- Civil Law split could be read as 'Anglo-Saxon' -v- The Other Europeans. There are real differences (jury trials, for instance, originated with the Anglo-Saxons, and are now mainly found in the UK, USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the like). In Europe, it's mainly Civil Law, often dating from the Code Napoleon. But this is terribly simplistic.

It has meant a real difference historically. Torture was a legitimate practice under Civil Law, because a person usually couldn't be convicted without either two witnesses or a confession. Torture was never sanctioned under the Common Law (though that didn't stop its unlawful use by powerful monarchs, of course). There's a letter from Pope Clement V to Edward II, saying (in modern English) "We hear you forbid torture as being contrary to the laws of your land; but no state can override Canon Law, Our Law; therefore I command you at once to submit these men to torture...You have already imperilled your soul as a favourer of heretics...Withdraw your prohibition and we grant you remission of sins". That's the pope ordering an English king to disobey English law on pain of damnation!

Somehow I rather doubt that anything quite like that is likely to happen as a consequence of Assange's extradition and trail (if any) in Sweden, but you never know, I suppose; one bizarrerie could possibly outdo another, although you can bet that, were attempts made to keep that under wraps, someone somewhere would spring it to Wikileaks...

[Pabmusic]

Somehow I rather doubt that anything quite like that is likely to happen...but you never know, I suppose...

No, things have moved on since 1300 or so. We now have [FANFARE!!!] - the European Convention on Human Rights, which outlaws torture, and to which both Sweden and the UK are signatories.

(The Americans, of course, aren't.)

[aeolium]

No, things have moved on since 1300 or so. We now have [FANFARE!!!] - the European Convention on Human Rights, which outlaws torture, and to which both Sweden and the UK are signatories.

Yes, that's to be celebrated, Pabmusic, but unfortunately politics makes things murkier than that. There is the matter of extraordinary rendition, in which both Britain and Sweden have been alleged to have been involved. A Council of Europe report from 2006 estimated that at least 100 people had been subject to extraordinary rendition in many cases to states which practised torture. That report concluded that both Britain and Sweden had been involved. There was for instance the case of Ahmed Agiza and Muhammad al-Zery, two Egyptians who had been seeking asylum in Sweden who were arrested in Stockholm, put on an American-registered jet and rendered to Egypt where they were tortured. Al-Zery was never charged and was released after two years in jail, subsequently being awarded damages by Sweden for the wrongful treatment he received.

Under Obama the US has fortunately changed its policy on extraordinary rendition but signing conventions is no good if governments are going to circumvent them surreptitiously.

[Serial_Apologist]

It's not too late to bring it back exclusively for bad punsters, y'know

Particularly if they work for canards!