Another day in court for Assange?

The Supreme Court has granted a stay of execution for Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, following an unusual legal challenge made after the judgment was published.

Seven justices of the Supreme Court ruled last week that a public prosecutor in Sweden is a “judicial authority” for the purposes of the Extradition Act 2003 (EA 2003), in the case of Assange v Swedish Prosecution Authority [2012] UKSC 22.

This cleared the way for Assange to be handed over to Sweden, where he has been accused of rape and sexual molestation.

However, Dinah Rose QC, counsel for Assange, indicated that she may make an application to have the court’s decision re-opened since the majority of the court appear to have based their decision on an interpretation of the 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, on which no argument was heard.

The court granted Rose 14 days to make the application. If she does, the justices may decide to re-open the appeal and accept further submissions on the matter.

The majority of the court (Lord Mance and Lady Hale dissenting) held the UK should interpret EA 2003 in accordance with the European Council’s Framework Decision on the European Arrest Warrant(EAW), even though it is not bound to do so.

Delivering judgment, Lord Phillips noted that an earlier draft of the Framework Decision expressly stated that a prosecutor was a “judicial authority”. Any intention to restrict the power to issue EAWs would have made express, he said, the reason for the change was to widen rather than narrow the scope of the term.