With the extradition of Julian Assange signed by the UK Home Secretary, Priti Patel, European liberal democracy confirms once again that its shortcomings are not contradictions, to be found here and there: they are part of the essence of its nature. If appearances were enough, science would not be necessary. 60 years ago, German justice faced the well-known Spiegel-Affäre, or “Spiegel case”, which involved the 103-day imprisonment of the magazine’s editor. The mirror, Rudolf Augstein. By revealing aspects of Rep. Federal of Germany, the magazine The mirror had its facilities inspected and material seized by the police. The case ended in the resignation of the then Minister of Defense, Franz Josef Strauss, and was taken to the German Federal Constitutional Court. The decision divided the Court, but the thesis prevailed that, in military matters, public information should take a back seat: “on the one hand, because readers cannot form their own independent judgment for lack of sufficient specialized knowledge, and on the other hand, because they do not need this knowledge to form their political judgment.” This is the real scandal of the decision.
Home Secretary Priti Patel has resurrected this understanding of press freedom, now with the allegiance that the judicial system of an independent country pays to a world power. The UK has preserved Augusto Pinochet from extradition to Spain, but will hand Assange over to the US, it seems. The same Kingdom will allow United States legislation to be applied in its territory. There is a third actor, also a defender of liberal democracy, who allowed one of its citizens to be victimized by such ignominy: the Australian government made its contribution in the form of complete omission in the case, when it should have protected its citizens. In short, everyone knelt at the insistence of the US government, making evident the limits of their sovereignty. And their democracies.
Assange is not a criminal: he revealed crimes committed by the government of the United States of America that virtually every newspaper in the world reported. Assange was not entitled to a fair trial in the UK, especially as his defense was deprived of extensive access to documents on several occasions. He won’t even have another one in the United States, as evidence from precedents alleged by his defense proved during the British court case.
:: Assange’s extradition is “terrible precedent”, says International Federation of Journalists ::
Regarding due process of law and freedom of the press, two celebrated basic elements of liberal democracy, this same model of democracy shows its limits when it collides with the economic and geopolitical power of the strongest. The attempt to domesticate this power by the right has been nothing more than an illusion, when it is proven again that the law is applied differently, even more against the weakest. In other words: not everyone is equal before the law.
There is another, more sophisticated but equally dear to liberals of legal argumentation and so-called theories of judicial decision. It’s called rationality. These liberals tend to maintain that every judicial decision that was founded on rationality is not only valid, but also fair. When reading the decision of Plessy v. Ferguson, who maintained racial segregation in the United States in 1896, or the decision of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom against Assange, both are endowed with rationality. Its arguments are concatenated. But they are contrary to constitutions and precedents, in addition to violating strong minimum consensus established by democratic politics and the expansion of individual and collective rights.
What liberals hide is that reason can be used for evil, and that, therefore, the rationality of decisions does not exhaust the analysis of cases. It is necessary to go to history and political science. These are the ones that warn us why Assange will really be extradited, and help to understand why the laws of liberal democracy do not subsist, nor do they guarantee the individual and collective rights and guarantees created by the same liberal democracy. Since 1895, Friedrich Engels recognized the phenomenon: the parties of the conservative order cry out in despair about the legality they themselves have created: legality kills us! This is perhaps the most necessary lesson we need to learn about Assange’s case and his trial, in addition to deeply regretting the unspeakable suffering that government and judicial institutions imposed on a journalist performing his professional work.
:: Assange in the US is of interest to the arms industry and financial capital, says Sergio Amadeu ::
*Martonio Mont’Alverne Barreto Lima is a professor at the University of Fortaleza, attorney for the Municipality of Fortaleza and a member of the Secretariat of International Affairs of the Brazilian Association of Jurists for Democracy (ABJD).
**This is an opinion article. The author’s view does not necessarily express the editorial line of the Brasil de Fato newspaper.
Editing: Glauco Faria
