Julian Assange enters final stage of extradition battle | The Guardian
Wikileaks founder Julian Assange is to enter the final stage of his legal battle to avoid extradition to Sweden to face questioning over sex crime allegations.
After failing to persuade a magistrates and the court of appeal that the cross border warrant issued for his arrest was invalid, the Australian’s legal team will appeal to the supreme court in London to prevent his deportation.
Assange is wanted for questioning in Sweden over claims of rape, sexual molestation and unlawful coercion made by two women he met on a visit to Stockholm in August 2010. He denies the claims.
The supreme court’s two-day hearing is unlikely to focus on the detail of the allegations against him, but the legal issue of whether the Swedish prosecutor who issued the European arrest warrant in December 2010 can be considered a valid judicial authority. Assange’s legal team, which will include Dinah Rose QC, an expert in civil liberties and European Union law, argues that it isn’t.
In Britain, as in the United States, only judges can normally approve arrest warrants. In Assange’s case, the warrant was issued by Sweden’s public prosecutor. Assange’s lawyers argue that the Swedish system is unfair because it puts the power to issue arrest warrants in the hands of the same people who are prosecuting him.
Seven judges rather than the usual five will hear the case “given the great public importance of the issues raised”, the court said. Their decision is not expected for several weeks.
![photo: A march in Ådalen, Sweden, in 1931
How Swedes and Norwegians Broke the Power of the ‘1 Percent’ | George Lakey
[…] By 1935, Norway was on the brink. The Conservative-led government was losing legitimacy daily; the 1 percent became increasingly desperate as militancy grew among workers and farmers. A complete overthrow might be just a couple years away, radical workers thought. However, the misery of the poor became more urgent daily, and the Labor Party felt increasing pressure from its members to alleviate their suffering, which it could do only if it took charge of the government in a compromise agreement with the other side.
This it did. In a compromise that allowed owners to retain the right to own and manage their firms, Labor in 1935 took the reins of government in coalition with the Agrarian Party. They expanded the economy and started public works projects to head toward a policy of full employment that became the keystone of Norwegian economic policy. Labor’s success and the continued militancy of workers enabled steady inroads against the privileges of the 1 percent, to the point that majority ownership of all large firms was taken by the public interest.
The 1 percent thereby lost its historic power to dominate the economy and society. Not until three decades later could the Conservatives return to a governing coalition, having by then accepted the new rules of the game, including a high degree of public ownership of the means of production, extremely progressive taxation, strong business regulation for the public good and the virtual abolition of poverty. When Conservatives eventually tried a fling with neoliberal policies, the economy generated a bubble and headed for disaster. (Sound familiar?)
Labor stepped in, seized the three largest banks, fired the top management, left the stockholders without a dime and refused to bail out any of the smaller banks. The well-purged Norwegian financial sector was not one of those countries that lurched into crisis in 2008; carefully regulated and much of it publicly owned, the sector was solid.
Although Norwegians may not tell you about this the first time you meet them, the fact remains that their society’s high level of freedom and broadly-shared prosperity began when workers and farmers, along with middle class allies, waged a nonviolent struggle that empowered the people to govern for the common good.](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lykkoxpWdy1qhvj14o1_500.jpg)
