The Australian government has been relatively quiet on the U.S. assurances on Julian Assange.
CN Live! speaks to an Australian senator, lawyer and former diplomat for their views.
Some members of the Australian legal, political and diplomatic community are troubled by a U.S. assurance that signals Julian Assange would be “potentially very greatly prejudiced” in a U.S. court, as British judges anticipated, given that foreign nationals who acted abroad do not have constitutional rights.
Stating that Assange is able to “seek to rely” on such rights as the First Amendment, the assurance makes no mention of what is “long-settled” law, according to Justice Brett Kavanaugh in the Supreme Court USAID v. Open Society case of 2020. This and other precedents establish that he could be denied these rights.
Joining CN Live! to discuss this issue from an Australian perspective are Greg Barns, an Australian lawyer; Federal Senator David Shoebridge; and retired diplomat Alison Broinowski. They were interviewed by Cathy Vogan.