The Lifeboat News
[ Message Archive | The Lifeboat News ]

    Judge Taylor's sentencing remarks Archived Message

    Posted by George Brennan on June 23, 2019, 2:24 pm, in reply to "Miscarriage of Justice: Why Assange's Belmarsh sentence is wrong"

    Magistates, Senior Magistrates, Recorders. Baroness Arbuthnot, Michael Snow and Deborah Taylor. We should know these people and their works. Without Margo and her tireless researches I confess I could not have named the last of this grisly trio. Here are Taylors sentencing remarks


    https://www.judiciary.uk/judgments/sentencing-remarks-of-hhj-deborah-taylor-r-v-assange/

    She says that not only is there no mitigation but that he is way beyond mitigation.

    Excerpt.
    “Firstly, by entering the Embassy, you deliberately put yourself out of reach, whilst remaining in the UK. You remained there for nearly 7 years, exploiting your privileged position to flout the law and advertise internationally your disdain for the law of this country. Your actions undoubtedly affected the progress of the Swedish proceedings. Even though you did co-operate initially, it was not for you to decide the nature or extent of your co-operation with the investigations. They could not be effectively progressed, and were discontinued, not least because you remained in the Embassy.
    Secondly, your continued residence in the Embassy has necessitated a concentration of resources, and expenditure of £16 million of taxpayers’ money in ensuring that when you did leave, you were brought to justice. It is essential to the rule of law that nobody is above or beyond the reach of the law.”



    Deborah Taylor strikes a patriotic note. Surely what Assange distrusted or “disdained” was not Engllish laws but Swedish procedures. At the time Assange skipped bail I remember George Monbiot emphasised that there was no proof the US would try to get him or that the Swedes would hand him over. Patrick Cockburn at the time agreed there were no certainties, but emphasised that Assange would be a fool to take the risk, ie his terrors were reasonable. There is now no lack of public proof that the US are out to get Assange, no-one doubts the US jails a circles of hell and there is no still no certainty that US extradition requests will be denied by anyone. But even supposing for argument sake that Assange’s fears of extradition to the US were not based on objective proof, Taylor surely has to show that these subjective fears were just a pretence before refusing to take them into account when mitigating. That seems like common sense and common decency. But common sense and common decency may be "above the law."

    Message Thread: