WEBVTT - The Battle for Julian Assange 0:00:03.240 --> 0:00:06.120 Welcome to Law the Podcast time Lex Lazy, I'm Greg Barnes. 0:00:06.559 --> 0:00:09.840 Where we go again, Greg and being a retired judge. 0:00:10.440 --> 0:00:11.440 Congratulations Legs. 0:00:11.480 --> 0:00:13.240 Yeah, thanks very much. It's very exciting. 0:00:13.320 --> 0:00:16.200 Actually, your whole world opens up. 0:00:16.280 --> 0:00:18.239 Lex. I've had that happen before and I went back 0:00:18.239 --> 0:00:20.200 to being a judge. But it won't happen again. Don't 0:00:20.200 --> 0:00:23.599 do it again. You've learned your lesson but three times, 0:00:23.640 --> 0:00:25.960 and now I'm retired. One thing I did want to 0:00:25.960 --> 0:00:28.880 touch on was some comments made by Justice Ian Jackman 0:00:28.920 --> 0:00:31.600 of the Federal Court in a speech he made back 0:00:31.600 --> 0:00:35.360 in June in relation to delays in the delivery of 0:00:35.440 --> 0:00:38.280 judgments by judges in the civil jurisdiction of that court. 0:00:38.479 --> 0:00:41.360 I think he is Hugh Jackman's brother. 0:00:41.400 --> 0:00:42.520 He is Hugh Jackman's brother. 0:00:42.760 --> 0:00:43.920 Yeah, Ian Jackman. 0:00:44.159 --> 0:00:47.120 So, just setting the scene, Federal Court does an enormous 0:00:47.120 --> 0:00:49.519 amount of civil work and a lot of public law 0:00:49.600 --> 0:00:52.600 and all the rest of it. Much of it requires 0:00:53.040 --> 0:00:57.200 reasonably lengthy hearings and even longer judgments. And what Justice 0:00:57.240 --> 0:00:59.320 Jackman noticed was that there are a lot of these 0:00:59.400 --> 0:01:02.360 judgments a long time to be delivered, periods of two 0:01:02.400 --> 0:01:03.880 and a half to three and a half years, and 0:01:03.920 --> 0:01:09.160 so in a speech recently, he identified seven cases where 0:01:09.640 --> 0:01:11.640 the particular judgment had taken at least two and a 0:01:11.680 --> 0:01:14.600 half years, And in the case of one judge, Justice 0:01:14.640 --> 0:01:17.160 Bernard Murphy, he put him in what he called the 0:01:17.240 --> 0:01:21.360 three and a half year club and made the point, 0:01:22.520 --> 0:01:24.200 which I think is a valid point to make, there 0:01:24.240 --> 0:01:27.760 is no federal judicial Commission, So the only way to 0:01:27.760 --> 0:01:30.880 make judges accountable is to make a public issue about 0:01:30.880 --> 0:01:34.560 delays in judgment. So what we're talking about is delays 0:01:34.760 --> 0:01:37.800 in the justice system. And there are parties in these 0:01:37.840 --> 0:01:40.960 cases who have to wait years to get an outcome. 0:01:41.240 --> 0:01:44.520 In one famous case, well one famous, one infamous case, 0:01:44.560 --> 0:01:47.280 perhaps one of the judges waited for two and a 0:01:47.319 --> 0:01:50.080 half years and then, as he put it, disappeared off 0:01:50.120 --> 0:01:53.600 into the sunset of retirement. Somebody else had to write it. Well, 0:01:53.640 --> 0:01:55.280 he was he was going, he was going to He 0:01:55.440 --> 0:01:57.480 was the one saddled with the job of writing the judgment. 0:01:58.360 --> 0:02:01.360 So what do you think about, looker. I watched his 0:02:02.160 --> 0:02:04.240 The extract from the speech, the. 0:02:04.240 --> 0:02:09.320 Egregious delays by some judges in delivering reserve judgments represent 0:02:09.520 --> 0:02:12.600 a real and growing threat to the rule of law 0:02:12.680 --> 0:02:16.120 in Australia. Delays of nine months or more are relatively 0:02:16.160 --> 0:02:20.400 common in some courts, including my own, and a significant 0:02:20.480 --> 0:02:24.800 number of judgments of the Federal Court are reserved for 0:02:24.840 --> 0:02:26.760 about two and a half years or more. 0:02:27.240 --> 0:02:28.880 I think it was on the Australian website and they 0:02:28.960 --> 0:02:32.200 flashed up the photographs of the judges, and I mean 0:02:32.280 --> 0:02:34.919 two minds about it, you know, I mean, I get 0:02:34.919 --> 0:02:37.360 the point he's making, and it's a very important point 0:02:37.720 --> 0:02:41.960 that justice delayed is justice denied for people. And you know, litigation, 0:02:42.320 --> 0:02:45.280 you know, we know, but I don't think most people 0:02:45.320 --> 0:02:47.680 know just how stressful it is unless you get involved. 0:02:47.880 --> 0:02:51.079 And it's expensive. Now you might say, oh, well it's corporations, 0:02:51.120 --> 0:02:55.639 it doesn't matter. Well it does because they've got contingencies 0:02:55.840 --> 0:02:59.400 relying on the result, etc. The question is would you 0:02:59.440 --> 0:03:01.520 go and do what he did, which was essentially a 0:03:01.600 --> 0:03:04.519 name and shame. I'm in two minds about it. I mean, 0:03:05.040 --> 0:03:07.000 on the one hand, I think, you know, maybe not. 0:03:07.080 --> 0:03:11.079 But now on the other hand, Richard Ackland, our friend 0:03:11.080 --> 0:03:14.320 who is a great journalist and used to run Media 0:03:14.360 --> 0:03:18.120 Watch for the ABC for a while, Justinian his great 0:03:18.240 --> 0:03:21.320 legal gossip website, he wouldn't like to gossip, but it 0:03:21.360 --> 0:03:24.160 is a gossip website. But he keeps track of these judgments. 0:03:24.160 --> 0:03:25.400 He's been doing it for years. 0:03:25.480 --> 0:03:25.760 Yes. 0:03:26.200 --> 0:03:28.120 In fact, I was just thinking the other day about 0:03:28.120 --> 0:03:31.840 a case. I did, a migration case. The two and 0:03:31.919 --> 0:03:35.120 a half years to get a judgment, but when we 0:03:35.200 --> 0:03:37.360 won it, I was so happy we won it. I'd 0:03:37.360 --> 0:03:39.400 actually forgotten that it was two and a half years 0:03:39.760 --> 0:03:43.240 we've been waiting. So look, I mean, there's really no 0:03:43.320 --> 0:03:44.000 excuse for it. 0:03:44.240 --> 0:03:46.640 When I went to the Supreme Court, I'd been there 0:03:46.680 --> 0:03:49.000 a year or so, I think, and I had also 0:03:49.080 --> 0:03:52.160 forgotten this particular case, which was a criminal appeal. I 0:03:52.320 --> 0:03:54.960 just had completely forgotten it. But the judgment had disappeared 0:03:54.960 --> 0:03:58.200 into the earth somehow. And then got a notification that 0:03:58.280 --> 0:04:01.160 the court was delivering judge. But it was quite surreal 0:04:01.240 --> 0:04:03.720 that here was the Court of Appeal delivering a judgment 0:04:03.760 --> 0:04:06.760 in which I've been counseled and now I'm a judge. Well, 0:04:06.920 --> 0:04:08.840 and that was twelve or eighteen months. Might have been 0:04:08.840 --> 0:04:11.080 a bit longer, yeah, I mean. He argued in his 0:04:11.240 --> 0:04:14.080 speech that these sort of delays are a breach of 0:04:14.120 --> 0:04:17.440 the rule of law, and it's hard to it's really 0:04:17.800 --> 0:04:19.640 hard to argue with that. And the other point is 0:04:19.960 --> 0:04:22.840 you can't blame the lawyers. I mean, judges are paid 0:04:22.880 --> 0:04:26.520 handsomely to do their work and everyone knows judgment writing 0:04:26.640 --> 0:04:29.520 is a challenge. They get writers blocked. There are times 0:04:29.520 --> 0:04:31.400 when you just can't bring yourself to do it because 0:04:31.680 --> 0:04:34.360 you just can't make the brain work. But it's got 0:04:34.400 --> 0:04:34.920 to be dealt with. 0:04:35.560 --> 0:04:39.280 Yeah, it's funny about a judgments. I mean, most of 0:04:39.360 --> 0:04:43.120 our listeners and most people don't read judgments very wisely. 0:04:43.600 --> 0:04:46.719 But I think one of the issues about judgments some 0:04:46.760 --> 0:04:49.719 of them are very long legs. Yes, really long. 0:04:49.800 --> 0:04:52.440 We have been inundated with paper over the last twenty 0:04:52.520 --> 0:04:54.640 years or yeah, I mean that's what they said about 0:04:54.640 --> 0:04:57.760 the court of appeal when Victoria had a Court of 0:04:57.760 --> 0:05:00.480 Appeal introduced in the nineteen nineties. I think it was 0:05:01.040 --> 0:05:02.680 all that was going to do was at a level 0:05:02.720 --> 0:05:06.000 of complexity that was beyond comprehension to the original or 0:05:06.080 --> 0:05:09.320 the old process of full courts. And I think that's happened. 0:05:09.960 --> 0:05:13.320 There is a mountain. So for our listeners. 0:05:13.400 --> 0:05:17.640 Most jurisdictions around Australia have a separate well not all 0:05:17.680 --> 0:05:20.279 of the bigger jurisdictions have a separate court which is 0:05:20.320 --> 0:05:23.680 called the Court of Appeal, and those judges sit in 0:05:23.720 --> 0:05:26.119 that division. They just hear appeals. They're not hearing murder 0:05:26.160 --> 0:05:29.120 trials etc. You know, it's a separate division in the court. 0:05:29.160 --> 0:05:30.960 I've had it in the UK for years and years. 0:05:31.000 --> 0:05:31.840 That's where it came from. 0:05:32.400 --> 0:05:34.400 Not always a good idea. 0:05:34.160 --> 0:05:37.040 But look anyway, another Jackman has made himself famous. 0:05:37.120 --> 0:05:40.400 Yes, well, indeed, now the other judge who's caused a 0:05:40.440 --> 0:05:42.560 bit of a stir or some weeks ago now was 0:05:42.680 --> 0:05:44.760 just a speech Jones of the High Court that was 0:05:44.800 --> 0:05:46.800 a cracker of a speech, made a speech to the 0:05:47.680 --> 0:05:50.960 what was it, the North Queensland Law Association. Somebody said 0:05:51.080 --> 0:05:53.599 he probably thought speaking at an out of the way 0:05:53.680 --> 0:05:57.400 function like that. No one read it, everybody's looked at it, 0:05:57.520 --> 0:05:59.680 and he's been the subject of a fair bit of criticism. 0:06:00.400 --> 0:06:03.080 The point that he's making is that the Samuel Griffith 0:06:03.400 --> 0:06:07.920 Society is now effectively advocating for a US style court 0:06:07.960 --> 0:06:09.039 stacking system. 0:06:09.400 --> 0:06:12.240 So again for listeners to Samuel Griffith Society as an 0:06:12.240 --> 0:06:16.559 obscure society. Samuel Griffith was a former Premier and Chief 0:06:16.680 --> 0:06:19.520 Justice of Queensland and on one of the first High 0:06:19.520 --> 0:06:23.160 Court judges in Australia and it's a conservative group of lawyers, 0:06:23.400 --> 0:06:26.680 and it's a bit like you know, some people might 0:06:26.720 --> 0:06:29.120 have heard of the Federalist Society in the US, which 0:06:29.200 --> 0:06:33.039 is the go to place for Trump and his administration 0:06:33.160 --> 0:06:36.960 to get their judges from reliably conservative people. So that 0:06:37.120 --> 0:06:38.440 was the essence of the attack. 0:06:39.040 --> 0:06:43.200 And they stand accused of advancing a sort of conservative 0:06:43.240 --> 0:06:47.960 agenda within the Samuel Griffith Society and attracting people who 0:06:48.040 --> 0:06:50.440 might eventually grow into High Court judges who will have 0:06:50.480 --> 0:06:54.000 a conservative outlook. And the conservative outlook means treating things 0:06:54.080 --> 0:06:56.760 like the Australian Constitution in the way it would have 0:06:56.800 --> 0:06:59.640 been treated one. So I hope they go to court 0:06:59.680 --> 0:07:02.120 in a whole and buggy, Yes, well exactly, and don't 0:07:02.240 --> 0:07:07.480 use telephones. Handwrite your judgments, yes, English, tea, no coffee. 0:07:07.520 --> 0:07:10.640 I want everything a field day with handwritten and judgments 0:07:10.640 --> 0:07:11.080 that will take you. 0:07:14.920 --> 0:07:16.640 This is sounding like ruined hg. 0:07:18.840 --> 0:07:23.120 He he Justice Bench. Jones described Samuel Griffith as Marx 0:07:23.200 --> 0:07:27.240 adjacent in the cause of making the point that they 0:07:27.280 --> 0:07:28.960 had completely missed it. 0:07:28.960 --> 0:07:31.840 Well, it's funny you should say that I didn't know 0:07:31.960 --> 0:07:34.680 much about Jamuel Griffiths but there's I looked up a 0:07:34.720 --> 0:07:37.000 biography of him and I had to flick through it, 0:07:37.160 --> 0:07:40.520 and he was pro worker. This is before the Labor 0:07:40.560 --> 0:07:44.960 Party exists. Pro worker, you know, I mean conservative on 0:07:45.000 --> 0:07:47.800 some things, and I think I read that when it 0:07:47.880 --> 0:07:51.520 came to the Kannak workers as they used to be 0:07:51.560 --> 0:07:54.560 called from the Pacific Islands on sugar plantations, he was 0:07:54.600 --> 0:07:58.520 actually big on stopping abuse by employers, and you know, 0:07:58.560 --> 0:08:00.000 in those days, sort of radic. 0:08:00.560 --> 0:08:02.000 Yeah. Yeah. 0:08:02.160 --> 0:08:04.520 I've always thought, though, Leks, that there's a lot of 0:08:04.560 --> 0:08:08.480 mythology about appointing judges in Australia that we pretend it's 0:08:08.520 --> 0:08:09.200 not political. 0:08:09.400 --> 0:08:10.200 Of course it's political. 0:08:10.280 --> 0:08:11.080 Course it's political. 0:08:11.160 --> 0:08:12.520 Every appointment is political. 0:08:12.800 --> 0:08:15.520 That's why you get appointed. Yeah, I'm too political. You 0:08:15.560 --> 0:08:17.760 can be political and then there's political. 0:08:18.000 --> 0:08:20.520 I told you Peter dunn't describe me as a left 0:08:20.560 --> 0:08:24.000 wing idea Logue. Fantastic appointed by Rob Hols. Judges are 0:08:24.000 --> 0:08:25.360 appointed Roberts. 0:08:25.000 --> 0:08:27.960 Was the Attorney General in Victoria. It's fantastic bloke and 0:08:28.000 --> 0:08:29.120 we're going to get him on one day. 0:08:29.200 --> 0:08:32.080 Yes, he may come on and say he regrets my appointment, 0:08:32.120 --> 0:08:33.840 but I don't think. I don't think so. One of 0:08:33.840 --> 0:08:36.040 the I think one of the serious things about this, 0:08:36.440 --> 0:08:38.920 the point that I took out of Justice Bench Jones's 0:08:39.200 --> 0:08:42.600 address was that he is concerned, I think, and Michael 0:08:42.679 --> 0:08:46.640 Kirby's written about this, about this sort of underlying criticism 0:08:46.800 --> 0:08:51.319 of the judgment in Marbo and associated judgments, I mean 0:08:52.040 --> 0:08:53.040 constantly criticized. 0:08:53.160 --> 0:08:55.560 I know Marbo. You know, the Marbo judgment, which I 0:08:55.559 --> 0:08:59.440 think every Australian knows, if only because they've watched the 0:08:59.480 --> 0:09:04.000 Castle where he talks about Marbo and the var and 0:09:04.080 --> 0:09:07.280 the constant you know, which of course accorded right to 0:09:07.800 --> 0:09:11.280 Aboriginal land for Aboriginal people with the concept of title 0:09:11.360 --> 0:09:14.120 like we all have in our suburban houses. It's not 0:09:14.160 --> 0:09:17.120 particularly radical. It's just an extension of the common law. 0:09:17.280 --> 0:09:19.800 I mean, it's you know, you read the judgments. There's 0:09:19.800 --> 0:09:23.199 nothing radical about it. No, I mean, honestly, I mean 0:09:23.200 --> 0:09:25.439 it's just I was working in politics at the time 0:09:25.480 --> 0:09:27.640 in the nineteen nineties and Richard Court was the Premier 0:09:27.679 --> 0:09:32.560 of Wa Conservative Margaret Court Tennis plaz brother and he 0:09:32.640 --> 0:09:35.080 used to come to these meetings of premiers and prime 0:09:35.120 --> 0:09:39.600 ministers and they'd all make an opening statement. And every 0:09:39.600 --> 0:09:42.000 opening statement he made that I heard, which was three 0:09:42.080 --> 0:09:45.160 or four of them. He'd say, Marbo is going to 0:09:45.200 --> 0:09:49.280 destroy Western Australia. The whole of Perth will be subject 0:09:49.320 --> 0:09:52.480 to a native title claim he produced these maps. I 0:09:52.480 --> 0:09:55.640 mean it was just absurd, you know, And this was 0:09:55.679 --> 0:10:00.160 sort of this fear campaign whipped up. Now what that 0:10:00.200 --> 0:10:03.240 he is thirty five years on Marlbo's part of the 0:10:03.240 --> 0:10:08.000 furniture except for a few obsessive and cranks. Talking about 0:10:08.080 --> 0:10:11.480 Robert Beach Jones, the judge who I don't know, but 0:10:11.640 --> 0:10:17.319 his wife is a playwright who's just done a play 0:10:17.679 --> 0:10:22.199 which has got rave reviews. And I can't remember the 0:10:22.280 --> 0:10:24.839 name of the play. But maybe while we're talking or 0:10:24.880 --> 0:10:28.600 look her up. Okay, her name, her name the brilliant 0:10:28.640 --> 0:10:32.440 Matthew here. We can't go past him. Her his name 0:10:32.520 --> 0:10:35.680 is Robert Beach Jones, and we just want to know 0:10:35.720 --> 0:10:38.959 who his wife is. Matthew. Matthew's like the guy you 0:10:39.320 --> 0:10:42.640 know every footy, every footy commentator has to go to. 0:10:43.640 --> 0:10:47.320 That's the stacks. How many games he plays, how many games? 0:10:47.520 --> 0:10:52.520 How many yards? How many yards is he achieved? That's 0:10:52.600 --> 0:10:56.680 his wife? Oh been to several Yeah, and what's the 0:10:56.760 --> 0:11:00.560 new play. There's one that's out at the moment or 0:11:00.600 --> 0:11:06.520 has been out recently, it'said huge. Yeah, Prima Facing Yeah, yeah. 0:11:06.360 --> 0:11:09.520 Well there's too there's Prima Facing in Nindauelia. Yeah yeah, 0:11:09.800 --> 0:11:13.640 so so you know she's outstanding. Yeah, he's an interesting guy. 0:11:13.920 --> 0:11:16.360 He spent some time because you know, I live part 0:11:16.360 --> 0:11:18.920 of my time in Hobart, he's spent some time. I 0:11:18.920 --> 0:11:20.720 think he went to Bernie High School in the northwest 0:11:20.720 --> 0:11:24.040 coast of Tasmania. And apparently I don't know him at all, 0:11:24.080 --> 0:11:26.280 but really decent. I don't know either. I love the 0:11:26.320 --> 0:11:29.840 speech and I have empathy with a speech and with 0:11:29.920 --> 0:11:32.480 him as a judge he can look forward to a 0:11:32.559 --> 0:11:33.959 controversial career from him. 0:11:34.559 --> 0:11:37.320 And also these attacks or the judge shouldn't do this. 0:11:38.200 --> 0:11:40.840 The right wing judges do it all the time, always 0:11:40.880 --> 0:11:41.679 out there, you. 0:11:41.600 --> 0:11:43.439 Know, giving speeches. It's the whole other topic. 0:11:43.920 --> 0:11:45.160 Yeah, let's not go there. 0:11:45.280 --> 0:11:48.120 Let's go to a topic diary or heart Greg the 0:11:48.320 --> 0:11:50.600 abdul Haiti against the Commonwealth case. 0:11:50.720 --> 0:11:54.520 Yeah, how raation judgment of the High Court. So people 0:11:54.640 --> 0:11:58.199 might have been following a series of cases since twenty 0:11:58.360 --> 0:12:02.440 twenty three where the High Court said, you know, because 0:12:02.559 --> 0:12:05.720 the Commonwealth Government had locked up a lot of people 0:12:06.080 --> 0:12:10.079 who had lost their visas because they'd committed criminal offenses 0:12:10.120 --> 0:12:14.080 generally not always, I don't think, but breach of visa 0:12:14.120 --> 0:12:16.400 and they can't go back to the country from which 0:12:16.440 --> 0:12:19.840 they came because they'll be persecuted and there's no reasonable 0:12:19.880 --> 0:12:22.439 prospect of that happening in the future. And what the 0:12:22.520 --> 0:12:25.160 High Court is said back in twenty twenty three, you 0:12:25.200 --> 0:12:28.720 can't just keep them there. You can't just detain people forever. 0:12:28.800 --> 0:12:32.640 In a day and then people will remember. The Commonwealth 0:12:32.679 --> 0:12:35.360 government then scrambled because they had to release people that 0:12:35.480 --> 0:12:38.800 put them on curfews. I mean, we had this hysteria 0:12:38.880 --> 0:12:42.320 in the media that somehow there was these hordes of 0:12:42.400 --> 0:12:44.680 people coming into the community who are going to attack 0:12:44.720 --> 0:12:49.280 us all. And then what happened was that the government's 0:12:49.480 --> 0:12:51.520 fix were struck down in a High Court. 0:12:52.080 --> 0:12:53.160 And this was predictable. 0:12:53.360 --> 0:12:56.240 If you falsely imprison someone, if you hold a person 0:12:56.720 --> 0:13:00.000 as either a government official or a police or even privately, 0:13:00.679 --> 0:13:02.880 and you don't have any lawful basis for doing so, 0:13:02.920 --> 0:13:04.920 it's called false imprisonment. Yeah, it's a taught it's a 0:13:04.960 --> 0:13:08.440 taught COMPENSI consert damages, Yeah, you consert. And so what's 0:13:08.440 --> 0:13:10.880 going to happen. This case was about a guy who'd 0:13:10.920 --> 0:13:13.840 been locked up for a long period of time. He 0:13:14.240 --> 0:13:16.959 and I think the Commonwealth said, it's about two hundred 0:13:17.000 --> 0:13:19.560 and forty people who are in this category will now 0:13:19.600 --> 0:13:23.480 be able to sue for false imprisonment. Commonwealth tried to 0:13:23.480 --> 0:13:25.679 say to the High Court, well, we thought the law 0:13:25.800 --> 0:13:28.920 was different, so we weren't falsely imprisoning them, and the 0:13:29.000 --> 0:13:31.160 High Court said, well, it's not the way it works. 0:13:31.679 --> 0:13:35.280 You're either were or you weren't. So the compensation claims 0:13:35.280 --> 0:13:37.320 are going to be huge. I mean, hard to quantify, 0:13:37.440 --> 0:13:39.199 but certainly well under the minions. 0:13:39.280 --> 0:13:42.320 The argument they ran, the Comonwealth ran was effectively, the 0:13:42.360 --> 0:13:45.520 officials who detained these people had a belief that what 0:13:45.559 --> 0:13:48.440 they were doing was valid. Yeah, and therefore, so therefore 0:13:48.440 --> 0:13:50.320 it's okay. Yeah. So if he's like, you're doing one 0:13:50.360 --> 0:13:52.760 hundred and sixty kilometers an hour in the sixty zone, Yeah, 0:13:52.760 --> 0:13:54.880 that's the problem. Do you think that's an idea? 0:13:55.000 --> 0:13:57.439 Yeah, that's okay, that's okay. That's the problem with that argument. 0:13:57.600 --> 0:13:58.479 It's ridiculous. 0:13:58.720 --> 0:14:01.400 It brings up another point is the amount of money 0:14:01.440 --> 0:14:05.679 that's been spent on immigration cases over the years and 0:14:05.800 --> 0:14:08.880 compensation claims. I mean people forget there was seventy million 0:14:09.000 --> 0:14:12.719 paid by the Commonwealth for people detained on man As 0:14:12.720 --> 0:14:15.240 Island back in two thousand and seventeen, big class action. 0:14:15.559 --> 0:14:18.840 There's been numerous cases of people who have suffered physical 0:14:18.880 --> 0:14:22.360 and mental abuse, we been falsely in prisoned, been paid 0:14:22.400 --> 0:14:25.440 out millions, you know, hundreds of millions. 0:14:25.880 --> 0:14:28.120 So there's a core principle involved, goes back to the 0:14:28.160 --> 0:14:30.680 Magna Carta. Yeah, if you're going to lock someone up, 0:14:30.720 --> 0:14:33.400 it's got to be into a valid law, absolutely right. 0:14:33.440 --> 0:14:36.240 And in fact, I'm aware of some examples of where 0:14:36.320 --> 0:14:40.600 people have been held for a number of hours beyond 0:14:40.720 --> 0:14:43.520 the period in which police were entitled to hold them, 0:14:43.720 --> 0:14:46.080 and they've written to the police saying we're going to 0:14:46.120 --> 0:14:49.040 take legal action and they get a payout. There's one 0:14:49.080 --> 0:14:52.280 case in South Australia. I think he was only held 0:14:52.360 --> 0:14:54.520 for four and a half hours and he got five thousand. 0:14:54.800 --> 0:14:57.120 So the courts, I think take it pretty seriously because 0:14:57.200 --> 0:14:58.840 they should, and so they should because as you start, 0:14:58.840 --> 0:15:09.680 it's core principle. Gabriel Shipton is here with us today. 0:15:09.720 --> 0:15:13.000 Gabriel Shipton's become a very good friend of mine and 0:15:13.280 --> 0:15:16.880 we work together on Julian Assange's campaign. Gabriel really led 0:15:16.920 --> 0:15:20.920 that globally and from Australia, and he is Julian's brother. 0:15:21.400 --> 0:15:25.000 He's also a very good documentary filmmaker. Put out a 0:15:25.000 --> 0:15:27.680 great doco that many would have seen called Ithaca, which 0:15:27.800 --> 0:15:31.440 was about Julian and the quest to free him. Now 0:15:31.480 --> 0:15:34.200 he's set up an amazing project, I should declare I 0:15:34.240 --> 0:15:37.720 am involved in this called the Information Rights Project, which 0:15:37.800 --> 0:15:40.560 is really all about freedom of speech and protection of 0:15:40.600 --> 0:15:44.200 whistleblowers and journalists and others. So we thought he'd be 0:15:44.200 --> 0:15:47.120 a good person to come along, Les and yeah, still 0:15:47.120 --> 0:15:50.640 each wisdom on freedom of speech. Absolutely, I followed it 0:15:50.760 --> 0:15:53.840 during the time. Followed your reference during the time, Greg 0:15:53.880 --> 0:15:57.440 as well on behalf of Julian and the whole saga 0:15:57.520 --> 0:15:59.840 struck me as a horrifying nightmare for the people who 0:15:59.880 --> 0:16:02.640 are involved in it. Yeah, I mean, Gabriel, you, of 0:16:02.720 --> 0:16:05.160 course spent a lot of time in the United States. 0:16:05.240 --> 0:16:07.120 I don't know how many trips. How many trips did. 0:16:06.960 --> 0:16:08.720 You do at the end there I was going once 0:16:08.760 --> 0:16:10.560 a month, Yeah, yeah, once a month for a week 0:16:10.600 --> 0:16:13.840 at a time when Congress and Senate were in session. 0:16:14.280 --> 0:16:16.680 I've sort of lost count of the amount of trips. 0:16:16.440 --> 0:16:19.120 And I mean my memory of it was that, you know, 0:16:19.240 --> 0:16:21.520 you would have done thirty or forty trips. 0:16:21.400 --> 0:16:23.640 Yeah, something like that. Would have definitely gotten up there. 0:16:23.680 --> 0:16:27.040 But it did feel like a second home. Always to Washington, Yeah, 0:16:27.040 --> 0:16:30.400 always to Washington. We did traveled around the US quite 0:16:30.400 --> 0:16:33.720 a bit, but as we lobbied more and more, we 0:16:33.800 --> 0:16:36.200 sort of learned that, you know, we had to go 0:16:36.240 --> 0:16:39.400 where the power was, and that was Washington. 0:16:39.840 --> 0:16:43.920 Gabriel, There'll be people who know they know the name Dulanissange, 0:16:43.960 --> 0:16:46.960 but probably can't recall much of the detail about it 0:16:46.960 --> 0:16:49.200 except that it was in the news. Who might be 0:16:49.240 --> 0:16:51.680 listening to this podcast, So can you give us just 0:16:51.760 --> 0:16:54.160 a really short, potted summary of, Hey, you got to 0:16:54.200 --> 0:16:56.720 the stage of being in the position of lobbying in 0:16:56.720 --> 0:16:59.720 the United States? Basically what stage of the whole case? 0:16:59.760 --> 0:17:00.720 We? Oh? 0:17:00.720 --> 0:17:01.040 Okay? 0:17:01.040 --> 0:17:03.560 So, Julian started WikiLeaks in two thousand and six. It 0:17:03.720 --> 0:17:07.960 was a leak publishing website. In twenty ten, they published 0:17:08.119 --> 0:17:11.800 Chelsea Manning's Leaks. Chelsea Manning was a military private who 0:17:11.920 --> 0:17:15.919 leaked vast tranchers of documents that she had access to, 0:17:16.560 --> 0:17:20.880 which was Afghanistan war files. Iraq War files, two hundred 0:17:20.880 --> 0:17:24.480 and fifty thousand diplomatic cables from inside the diplomatic core 0:17:24.560 --> 0:17:26.640 of the United States then. 0:17:27.000 --> 0:17:29.720 And some famous film. Yes, that's right, and had a 0:17:29.720 --> 0:17:32.240 collateral murder video that was. 0:17:32.240 --> 0:17:36.240 The most famous piece, which showed a helicopter gunship mowing 0:17:36.240 --> 0:17:38.560 down a couple of Reuters journalists. 0:17:38.320 --> 0:17:42.680 With commentary, Yeah, with commentary with expressed pleasure having succeeded. No, No, 0:17:42.800 --> 0:17:43.760 it's extraordinary. 0:17:46.119 --> 0:17:46.399 Come on. 0:17:49.960 --> 0:17:58.560 Ship, all right, master. Yeah. 0:17:58.800 --> 0:18:01.200 And that was, yeah, the most famous piece and very 0:18:01.280 --> 0:18:03.639 moving and really exposed what was going on in the 0:18:03.680 --> 0:18:07.200 ground in Iraq, that nobody really really understood these machines 0:18:07.200 --> 0:18:10.359 of war and the people using them. That would happened 0:18:10.359 --> 0:18:13.240 in twenty eleven. Fast forward to twenty nineteen. It was 0:18:13.280 --> 0:18:18.000 the first Trump administration. Mike Pompeo, then CIA director, had 0:18:18.000 --> 0:18:20.840 basically declared a fatoir against Julian and Wiki League, saying 0:18:20.880 --> 0:18:23.639 We're coming after you no matter what. And it was 0:18:23.760 --> 0:18:27.080 in twenty nineteen that Julian was taken from the ecuador 0:18:27.119 --> 0:18:29.320 In embassy where he had been given refuge for seven 0:18:29.480 --> 0:18:32.680 or for some years. For seven years or so, he'd 0:18:32.720 --> 0:18:35.359 been given asylum by Ecuador and then he was taken 0:18:35.400 --> 0:18:38.320 and put in a Bellmarsh maximum security prison, which was 0:18:38.359 --> 0:18:41.280 in London. And so this was during that period where 0:18:41.920 --> 0:18:44.639 the US had launched these extradition proceedings trying to get 0:18:44.720 --> 0:18:48.119 Julian back to the United States to prosecute him for 0:18:48.240 --> 0:18:54.960 publishing this information that embarrassed the US government majorly they 0:18:54.960 --> 0:18:58.639 wanted revenge. And it was during that period that this 0:18:58.680 --> 0:19:01.480 whole campaign and lobbying was taking place. 0:19:01.520 --> 0:19:02.440 And I think for many. 0:19:02.280 --> 0:19:04.400 Years there was a lot of lobbying and a lot 0:19:04.400 --> 0:19:06.960 of political work done in Europe, but nobody had really 0:19:07.680 --> 0:19:10.640 really dared to go into the United States. But I 0:19:10.680 --> 0:19:12.480 was never involved in wiki leagues, so I sort of 0:19:12.520 --> 0:19:15.520 had this, I guess, a blank slate that I could 0:19:15.520 --> 0:19:19.120 go there and I wouldn't be threatened by the authorities there. 0:19:19.280 --> 0:19:22.680 It was an allegation of sexual offending too, made in Sweden. 0:19:22.720 --> 0:19:23.440 Was it in Sweden? 0:19:23.520 --> 0:19:28.240 Yeah, that was an original the original extradition request from 0:19:28.280 --> 0:19:33.800 Sweden related to it was a preliminary investigation that was 0:19:33.840 --> 0:19:36.440 going on in Sweden. And there's this, you know, these 0:19:36.480 --> 0:19:39.280 strange rules that were all sort of I guess at 0:19:39.280 --> 0:19:42.479 every point the system was sort of turned against Julian. Yes, 0:19:42.800 --> 0:19:46.359 and that led to him having to take refuge in 0:19:46.359 --> 0:19:47.360 the Ecuador. 0:19:47.200 --> 0:19:49.840 Because if he'd been extradited from the UK to Sweden 0:19:51.240 --> 0:19:54.760 had a bad track record turning people over. The next 0:19:54.800 --> 0:19:56.399 stop would be the United States. 0:19:56.520 --> 0:19:59.919 Yeah, so the Sweden was a place where extraordinary rendition 0:20:00.160 --> 0:20:03.560 happened during the War on Terror, and so that was 0:20:03.600 --> 0:20:05.800 the fear that he would go to Sweden and then 0:20:05.880 --> 0:20:08.359 just be moved on straight away to the United States. 0:20:08.600 --> 0:20:09.880 And Greg, you are one of the lawyers. 0:20:09.960 --> 0:20:13.159 I was certainly involved at the Australian end and in 0:20:13.200 --> 0:20:16.199 the latter part doing more of the political work with 0:20:16.280 --> 0:20:19.840 Gabriel and the team and his dad and others. Of course, 0:20:20.680 --> 0:20:23.879 we got that great news that a deal had been struck. 0:20:24.440 --> 0:20:28.120 What had happened was that the appeal process in the UK. 0:20:28.480 --> 0:20:31.560