Brita Sundberg-Weitman har kommenterat på:
John Billing: Riddle's skrivningar kan kritiseras på flera punkter. Han tycks t ex inte ha uppfattat att "bail" inte existerar utanför de anglosachsiska rättssystemen, vilket han borde veta som domare i mål om utlämnande och överlämnande. Här några punkter i mitt bemötande:
Precense of the defence in the Court of Appeal
(page 3: the witness at first appeared to say the defence were not represented in the Court of Appeal but later she said, after being referred to the decision of the court, that this document says Mr Hurtig was present, but she doesn't think he was) My comment: It appears clearly from the protocol of Svea Court of Appeal that Hurtig was not present. There was no hearing in the Svea Court of Appeal. The case was presented by an official of the Court.
Bail
(page 3: She was asked direct questions as to whether the court would decide whether this defendant should be on bail, if returned to Sweden. At first she appeared to avoid the question but did say that this is a matter for the court, with a right to appeal if bail is refused). My comment: There is no bail option in the Swedish Code of Judicial Procedure, so I cannot have said that ”this is a matter for the court” or that there is ”a right to appeal if bail is refused”
Ms Ny's idea of reasons to have a man locked up
(page 3: She was taken through the early paragraphs and accepted that there was nothing really wrong with what was said there) My comment: I probably did not have enough presence of mind to answer the question properly. However, what is really wrong with Ms Ny's statement - that a man ought to be detained in order to let the woman have the peace to consider whether or not she has been mistreated – is that this is not a legitimate reason to put a person in prison! (Legitimate grounds: risk of abscondense, risk of collution, risk of continued criminality)
Principle of proportionality
Judge Riddle states that he is ”not in a position to say what the reason was” why Mr Ny rejected Mr Assange's offers to be interrogated in England”. Obviously because she has never devulged what her reason was! That is why I said that her refusal ”looks malicious”. It strikes me that whereas Judge Riddle is rash to draw the conclusion that it ”cannot have slipped (Mr Hurtig's) mind” what efforts he made to contact his client between 21st, 22nd and 29th September, Judge Riddle is content that Ms Ny has refused to state her reasons for issuing a EAW instead of accepting Mr Assange's offers to be interrogated in England.
As stated in the decision by the High Court in December, what Mr Assange did ”is not the conduct of a person who is seeking to evade justice." When inteviewed in the media Ms Ny has given the following reason for not accepting Mr Assange's offer to be questioned in England: ”It would not be consistent with Swedish law.” This is simply not true.
The principle of proportionality will lack all sense if you accept that a state authority is not under an obligation to divulge its reasons for limiting a person's freedom!