Of Barristers and Baraitsers

"A barrister is a type of lawyer in common law jurisdictions. Barristers mostly specialise in courtroom advocacy and litigation. Their tasks include taking cases in superior courts and tribunals, drafting legal pleadings, researching the philosophy, hypothesis and history of law, and giving expert legal opinions." WIKIPEDIA.

"Baraitser" happens to be the surname of Vanessa Baraitser, a UK judge who has recently gained notoriety in the current high-profile Julian Assange extradition case proceedings in London.  The United States is seeking the extradition of Assange to face various serious charges in relation to his work with the internet organisation 'Wikileaks' for which he risks permanent imprisonment.

"Vanessa Baraitser (51) was appointed a district judge in October 2011 based at the Chief Magistrate’s Office in London, after being admitted as a solicitor in 1994. Apart from this, virtually next to no other information is available about her in the public domain." (See:  https://consortiumnews.com/2020/07/31/uk-refuses-to-release-information-on-assange-judge-who-has-96-percent-approval-rate-in-extradition-cases/ )

https://www.google.com/search?q=vanessa+baraitser+images&rlz=1C1ARAB_enGB463GB464&sxsrf=ALeKk00YFpfBkDBvPdbArgyZ5B3Yq8DvQw:1599831374093&tbm=isch&source=iu&ictx=1&fir=Mha1wXSNVR-nRM%252CCGXjc22zPGK7xM%252C_&vet=1&usg=AI4_-kTNZIJjNP9rvebOXCyw1v8Mbh29iA&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj6-4KmnOHrAhXkCWMBHdMABZMQ9QF6BAgKEAQ&biw=1248&bih=844#imgrc=Mha1wXSNVR-nRM

The origins of the unusual Baraitser name are interesting and may give some indication of personal background, which for a public official is otherwise mysteriously occluded. Should we regard this untypical secrecy as suspicious and ominous?

(See: https://lastnames.myheritage.com/last-name/baraitser )

Why has the following image of Vanessa Baraitser in the public domain been blocked?

https://www.google.com/search?rlz=1C1ARAB_enGB463GB464&sxsrf=ALeKk00YFpfBkDBvPdbArgyZ5B3Yq8DvQw:1599831374093&source=univ&tbm=isch&q=vanessa+baraitser+images&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj6-4KmnOHrAhXkCWMBHdMABZMQ7Al6BAgKEB8&biw=1248&bih=844#imgrc=BrfEnBlAx3UdHM

Let's try this one!

https://www.google.com/search?rlz=1C1ARAB_enGB463GB464&sxsrf=ALeKk00YFpfBkDBvPdbArgyZ5B3Yq8DvQw:1599831374093&source=univ&tbm=isch&q=vanessa+baraitser+images&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj6-4KmnOHrAhXkCWMBHdMABZMQ7Al6BAgKEB8&biw=1248&bih=844#imgrc=BWGo38GY0pe_sM&imgdii=3pZ9frIB1lnGsM

It would appear from the information gleaned by 'Consortium News' - and despite an extraordinary refusal contrary to normal practice by the Ministry of Justice to supply information, otherwise available in the public domain from legal sources - to reveal anything about her or her involvement in cases. She has it seems since 2011 specialised in extradition applications. Between November 2015 and May 2019, she ruled on 24 extradition cases and ordered extradition in 23 of them, Consortium News reports.

In the Assange case, Baraitser and barristers have gone head-to-head over both procedural matters and the law. How the hearings are held is obviously of crucial importance for the outcome for Assange but also has much wider significance for the administration of justice and freedom of information generally. It has become a litmus test on the balance between state power and individual freedom; on the right of the public to know what government is doing in its name; and the unbiased nature of the judicial process, as much there to protect the individual as to advance the interests of the state. 

Already, if the reports of Craig Murray are to be believed, all these principles have been severely challenged under the chairmanship of Vanessa Baraitser by her attitude and judgement. According to Murray she has evidenced partisanship towards the prosecution barrister and against the defence, that should give rise to serious concern in those who still believe in British justice and fair play. The devices employed both by the British and American prosecuting authorities have made it as hard as possible for Assange to mount his defence. 

Although posing no personal risk of violence, he has never-the-less been treated in all respects as a dangerous terrorist and refused permission to sit with his legal team in the body of the Court. At the February 2020 hearing, Judge Baraitser ruled Assange must remain in a bullet-proof glass-encased dock when the hearing resumes in May for the evidence phase of the hearing. Incredibly the request was even supported by the prosecuting barrister, James Lewis QC, who gave multiple instances of accused being allowed to sit in the body of the court without a separate application for bail but she would not relent.

"Speaking after the hearing, WikiLeaks editor-in-chief Kristin Hrafnsson addressed the media: “It ended with a great disappointment and an outrage when the judge decided, despite overwhelming arguments on behalf of Julian, that he would not be able to step out of the glass cage and sit with his lawyers when the hearings recommence in May. I say it’s an outrage because his lawyers presented rulings from the European Court of Human Rights, in Strasbourg, where it was ruled that in similar circumstances it was totally against the principles of fair trial to keep an individual in a glass cage.”

“It is an outrage that after a presentation from his lawyers of almost an hour, for this nonviolent intellectual to sit with his lawyers in the court room, the judge read out a pre-written ruling.

“So once more after these four days, we get a strong indication that this is not a fair trial. Julian will not get any fairness out of this court and I am absolutely outraged. We’ve heard examples that everywhere all around the world it is a common practice, out of dignity and fairness, that a defendant sits with his lawyer. From: https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/02/28/assa-f28.html )

At that hearing his lawyers outlined several ways in which their client’s right to a fair trial was being violated.

These included: 

“i) the physical layout of the court and the distance it places between Mr Assange and his legal team, 

ii) the high occupancy level of the court meaning that defence lawyers are unable to meet freely to receive instructions or impart advice, 

iii) the court’s poor acoustics and amplification, especially behind glass and proximity to audible protests, 

iv) the security procedures in place in the dock at Woolwich Crown Court which do not permit the passing of notes and which inhibit confidential instruction taking, 

v) the limited access to legal visits outside of court sitting times during the court day and 

vi) Mr Assange’s precarious psychiatric vulnerability, ongoing medication and the consequent elevated emotional strain of these proceedings of which the court is aware.”

Baraitser responded with undisguised malice, rejecting each of these concerns and telling Assange and his legal team, “You’ve had no difficulty at all.”  (Source: https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/02/28/assa-f28.html)

If Murray is to be believed, and he is supported by other sources, this 'Baraitser bias' is being continued in the present hearing. Despite a slightly more open 'dock' than at Belmarsh, Assange was still not allowed to leave it, making ongoing consultation with his barrister Mark Summers QC virtually impossible. 

Although in principle an open, public court, specifically referred to by Baraitser, she severely limited both witnesses in the public gallery where there was quite adequate room and the appearance of defence witnesses. After trying to exclude the latter altogether she allowed them subject to a thirty minute time limit. However next day the imbalance and unfairness of the thirty minute guillotine adopted by Baraitser, was exposed, when unlimited time was allowed to Lewis for his cross examination.  "The quality of mercy be not strained," obviously does not apply to Judge Baraitser implementation of justice. Perhaps she has never appreciated Shakespeare?

Murray reports: "Rather to our surprise, nobody else was allowed into the public gallery of court 10 but us five. Others like John Pilger and Kristin Hrafnsson, editor in chief of Wikileaks, were shunted into the adjacent court 9 where a very small number were permitted to squint at a tiny screen, on which the sound was so inaudible John Pilger simply left. 

This permission was then inexplicably revoked!

"Many others who had expected to attend, such as Amnesty International and Reporters Without Borders, were simply excluded, as were MPs from the German federal parliament (both the German MPs and Reporters Without Borders at least later got access to the inadequate video following strong representations from the German Embassy).

"Baraitser went on to say that it was important that the hearing was public, but she should only agree remote access where it was “in the interests of justice”, and having considered it she had decided it was not. She explained this by stating that the public could normally observe from within the courtroom, where she could control their behaviour. But if they had remote access, she could not control their behaviour and this was not in the “interests of justice”. (From: https://thefreedomarticles.com/assange-hearing-day-6/ )

Then there was another issue that many would regard as an American slight of hand designed  to make Assange's defence more difficult.  New charges had only just be lodged superceding the previous ones not officially served until the 29th July. Not until 21 August 2020, did  it  become clear the new US government submissions incorporated new charges. Summers said all these matters should be ventilated in these hearings if the new charges were to be heard, but the defence simply did not have time to prepare its answers or its witnesses in the brief six weeks it had since receiving them, even setting aside the extreme problems of contact with Assange in the conditions in which he was being held in Belmarsh prison. Yet Baraister summarily dismissed an application for more time so that a they could be adequately examined and defended.

"Immediately Summers sat down, Baraitser gave her judgement on this point. As so often in this hearing, it was a pre-written judgement. She read it from a laptop she had brought into the courtroom with her, and she had made no alterations to that document as Summers and Smith had argued the case in front of her." (Op cit)

No doubt if it could (and it still could!) the government would prefer a secret procedure reminiscent of the Stalinist era that it claims to be superior to. We have to ask if rules of British jurisprudence are being jettisoned in favour of some Anglo/American 'Deep State' operation, to protect illegal military secrecy, for which  individuals carefully chosen and protected to ensure pre-determined outcomes acceptable to the political elite?  If so what distinguishes from those totalitarian regimes, over which we love to pour our opprobrium. With the country in lock-down on the pretext of Covid-10, and show trials such as this, the public should wake up to the grim reality of our political and social catastrophe.

https://www.google.com/search?rlz=1C1ARAB_enGB463GB464&sxsrf=ALeKk00YFpfBkDBvPdbArgyZ5B3Yq8DvQw:1599831374093&source=univ&tbm=isch&q=vanessa+baraitser+images&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj6-4KmnOHrAhXkCWMBHdMABZMQ7Al6BAgKEB8&biw=1248&bih=844#imgrc=BWGo38GY0pe_sM