Who appointed the judge for Julian Assange&#39;s extradition hearing? That is, how are judges in the UK appointed to cases in general and to this case in particular?
how are judges in the UK appointed to cases in general? The Resident Judge or the Presiding Judge of the relevant court allocates cases to their fellow judges. Residing Judges sit at specific courts (e.g. all Crown courts will have a Resident Judge). Presiding Judges oversee specific circuits (e.g. the Western circuit). [how was the judge appointed] to this case in particular? All extradition cases start off at Westminster Magistrates Court, therefore Vanessa Baraitser, the District Judge assigned to this case, would have been given the case by order of Emma Arbuthnot, the Chief Magistrate of England and Wales. This is because the Chief Magistrate is the Resident Judge for that court, although in reality I presume she didn't personally make the decision to assign the case. The case listing system may simply have picked Ms. Baraitser as the next available judge to hear this case.
There is, of course, no way to tell how the Court would deal with such a case today. This is not a frequently litigated issue, with lots of case law. I note that in the case you link to, the court limited the statute to false claims made "with a fraudulent purpose". This normally means that the claimant is attempting to secure an improper financial or materiel advantage. In the United States v. Tandaric case, the person convicted had falsely claimed to be a US Citizen on an employment application for a company which did not hire non-citizens, and so gained a job through this false statement. He could have been convicted of ordinary Fraud. The court has not been as protective of Fraud under the First Amendment as it has been of speech generally, or even of false but non-fraudulent speech. I am not at all sure if the court would overturn this law in a similar case today. Edit: In the United States v. Achtner case, the court wrote: But we agree with the District Court that the representation of citizenship must still be made to a person having some right to inquire or adequate reason for ascertaining a defendant's citizenship; it is not to be assumed that so severe a penalty is intended for words spoken as a mere boast or jest or to stop the prying of some busybody, ... This seems to dispose of the example in the question of a neighbor who is merly inquiring as to the character of the area, or perhaps from simple curiosity, and a false speaker who seems to get no direct benefit or advantage from the falsehood. Both linked cases involved false statements made to employers or potential employees, during wartime at that, with the false speaker's employment apparently at stake.
Yes, this has come before the Court. Some prominent examples are - Mathieu-Mohin and Clerfayt v Belgium (1987), the first time Article 3 was before the European Court of Human Rights, on the complex Belgian system of balancing French-speaking and Dutch-speaking electoral institutions Matthews v United Kingdom (1999), on whether people in Gibraltar should be able to vote in elections to the European Parliament Hirst v United Kingdom (No 2) (2005), on whether the UK could have a blanket ban on voting applicable to all prisoners Riza and others v Bulgaria (2015), on selective interference with the electoral count In all but the first of these, the Court found a violation of Article 3 of the Protocol. At other times, it has given deference to a State's particular processes, or ruled that a complaint was inadmissible because it did not pertain to the covered type of election. You may be interested to read the Court's guide to its case-law on the topic (a 34-page PDF) which includes many more citations, and an explanation of the legal reasoning involved.
Any duty that exists is not legally enforceable in the courts in the U.S. (there are one or two cases in Canada imposing a similar duty in extraordinary rendition cases). Also, the arguably legal duty to provide diplomatic assistance to one's citizens doesn't apply in countries like North Korea where the U.S. has no diplomats. In practice, the U.S. government will do everything reasonably within its power to secure the release of a U.S. citizen held by a hostile foreign power (even a U.S. citizen who has behaved badly), because that's in the DNA of how the U.S. State Department always acts. But, at this point, short of an extreme Special Operations mission to abduct a prisoner that voluntarily defected from the U.S. while stationed in South Korea, there really isn't anything that the U.S. could do even if ordered to do so.
The time between arrest and being presented to a judge depends on the country you are in: japan You can be in jail for 23 days before you even see a judge and are charged, and that clock resets whenever they officially start to investigate you for a different possible charge. You are not charged, you are just accused of this related and greater crime. This tactic even has a special name: Hitojichi shihō. Someone they want to investigate for murder can be first imprisoned to investigate the deposit of the corpse, then for the actual murder, for a total of 46 days maximum - and if the DA isn't creative to get some other lesser included charges in. Against some Yakuza, some DAs allegedly managed to chain up much more. However, those 23 days (per investigation) are all the pre-trial investigative confinement that the state gets before a trial - the moment the formal charge is entered, the trial has to begin soon after... However, the state also often has the arrestee's confession at that point - partially because a creative DA might manage to keep you nigh permanently and in part because you don't have the right to have your attorney at your side during questioning in Japan. This is partially the reason why Japanese courts have such a crazy high conviction rate: more than 99% of the cases brought by DAs are convictions, in most cases using the confession obtained in the pre-charge detention as a piece of key evidence. england-and-wales If you are a suspect of terrorism, you can be kept for up to 14 days before you need to be either charged or released, as Rick explains much better. Generally, 24 hours or 96 hours for serious crimes, starting at the arrest hours, apply. european-union The EU has the European Convention on Human Rights (Art. 5 III): Everyone arrested or detained in accordance with the provisions of paragraph 1 (c) of this Article shall be brought promptly before a judge or other officer authorised by law to exercise judicial power and shall be entitled to trial within a reasonable time or to release pending trial. Release may be conditioned by guarantees to appear for trial. However, what is Promptly is dependant on what the countries implementing say it is. As an example, let's take a (closer) look at Germany. germany While you can be in investigative confinement (Untersuchungshaft / U-Haft) for months or up to a year typically, you need to be already officially charged and a judge has to affirm you are in U-Haft. This decision that you need to be in confinement needs to be repeated regularily in case of long investigative confinements. This Investigative Confinement, &quot;Untersuchungshaft&quot;, is defined in STPO §112 (~process regulations for criminal trials), and usually is limited to about 6 months before the suspect is to be released or be at trial, but in extremely difficult cases it can be extended by special motion in the layer of Oberlandesgericht, which is about the highest state court. Still, while an extension to 9 or 12 months is possible, there can be cases where this may be extended even further, even if that might not be entirely correct on other grounds - there had been appeals to the European court for human rights about such. On the other hand, once a trial starts and the court sees a flight risk or that you might pose a potential danger, you stay in (or are taken into) Untersuchungshaft for the duration of the trial. That is different from pre-trial Untersuchungshaft, in that you can't appeal on that your trial didn't start yet. In either case of Untersuchungshaft, any and all confinement is counted as time served, like the case of Fritz Teufel. In his case, his trial was seriously delayed and he was in Untersuchungshaft for 5 years before they convicted him to 5 years. In the end, he had already served all the due time due to the investigatory confinement, so he was released almost on the spot - just a little bit of paperwork and he was out.. Now, that is all court-ordered confinement. How far can we get without the court? What does Germany count as prompt? So, unless you have been put into investigative confinement by court order, you have to be released at the end of the day after you were arrested. End of the day is defined as midnight by the general rules. So if you were arrested Monday, 1st of January at 00:01, you are to be released on Tuesday, 2nd of January, 24:00. So, the absolute maximum confinement outside of the daylight-saving change day is 47 hours 59 minutes and 59 seconds until you need to have been seen by a judge, but because it is nigh impossible to get to see a judge between 16:00 and 24:00, the typical confinement till you are formally charged and possibly transferred to Untersuchungshaft is usually less. On a mere technicality, there is one day a year where you might be confined twice from 2 AM to 3 AM, but that is also always a Sunday.
Why do other countries, like America, not allow this? It is the way that U.S. courts have interpreted the constitutional amendment requirement and reflects a policy judgment that letting someone go free now and then is better than frequently forcing someone to be tried more than once. That value judgment flowed from concerns about and fear and skepticism of the British colonial criminal justice system and the Star Chamber in England with which they were familiar. The U.K., Australia, Canada, and New Zealand didn't have an independence revolution in their history to create the same kind of deep distrust of authority, especially in the criminal justice area. The U.S. was founded by terrorists. Few other former British colonies were. Quoting Dale: &quot;As a constitutional protection, legislative change like this is not available in the United States.&quot; Is that really true and can someone expand on this? When the courts determine that the constitution requires something it can't be changed with ordinary legislation. Either the constitution needs to be amended to change it (which is very hard), or the courts can change their interpretation (which is unlikely in an area so settled in the law and which is relatively uncontroversial between liberals and conservatives in the U.S.). If it is, this is a big problem in my opinion. The powers that be in the U.S. don't agree. This kind of case is exceedingly rare. And, there are much bigger problems with the system that obscure that one. Also, the dual sovereignty doctrine allows federal prosecutions in some wrongful acquittals that really matter (e.g. for civil rights violations by law enforcement).
DUI is a crime under Massachusetts law so Kurt would be prosecuted there by that state. Germany would offer consular assistance but this would not extend to preparing or paying for his defence. If convicted, and after serving his sentence, Germany and the USA would coordinate his deportation. The UK would offer consular assistance for the repatriation of Alice's body and for the participation of her family in the trial, again this would not extend to paying for it. They would not assist in any civil action Alice's family might take against Kurt in a Massachusetts court. While DUI is a crime in both Germany and the UK AFAIK they are not extraterritorial: that is the crime must be committed on their territory for them to prosecute it. Some crimes do have extraterritoriality but not DUI. Similarly, their courts would probably not hear a civil case because the correct venue is Massachusetts and they would probably entertain a motion to dismiss on that basis. Even if they did hear it, it would be heard under Massachusetts law.
Yes, you can be compelled by the government to reveal information: All it takes is a judge agreeing with a plaintiff or prosecutor that it has some relevance to a complaint over which the court has jurisdiction. If that point arrives and you want to protect that information you only have three choices: Get a legal team good enough to convince the court otherwise. Face the consequences of contempt of court for failing to supply the information requested. Flee to another jurisdiction before #2 happens.