Posted this in another thread about this issue recently:

You don't see a problem when a legal hearing that's been criticised as "undermining of due process and the rule of law" by the International Bar Association only offers a tiny number of hard-to-get seats to the public and then asks Amnesty International to compete with them on a first-come, first-serve basis?

From the Amnesty tweet thread: "The general public has a right to the few seats in the public gallery; trial monitors should not be competing with the public to secure a seat that belongs to the public-at-large." - https://twitter.com/JuliaHall18/status/1306198935816613889

> Amnesty International has no standing in the law above that of the general public

I found this in one of their documents:

"Amnesty International and other human rights organizations have for many years sent observers to significant political trials. The acceptance of international trial observers (whether sent by foreign governments or by non-governmental organizations) has arguably become an international legal norm. The practice is well established and accepted within the international community." - https://www.amnesty.org/download/Documents/156000/pol3000219...

They should, since it concerns a matter of international politics and, indirectly / by extension, whether the US committed war crimes and if they're going to string up the whistleblower that exposed it.

And on a more local level, it's about which side the UK will pick. They can side with justice and hold onto Assange (or grant him asylum), defying their next best friend the US (after they pissed off and flounced out of Europe), or siding with international justice and hold onto him as a key witness for the (hopefully upcoming) war crimes case in the international court of justice.

> They should, since it concerns a matter of international politics and, indirectly / by extension, whether the US committed war crimes and if they're going to string up the whistleblower that exposed it.

Amnesty International is just an NGO. They get a lot of press but they have no standing in law, "whether the US committed war crimes" or not.

Which other NGOs should be empowered to have legal standings in other people's court cases? Which others should the government be forced to listen to?

seems like a disaster of an idea.

I'm pretty positive that the "they should" was in reply to

> whether the general public should have greater access.

Not that AI should have special legal standing.

Except the whole thing is about AI requesting special status as fair trial monitors and getting told no, so not really.

I don't think that's a fair characterization.

AI is requesting access as trial monitors, special or not. Something they are entitled to under law and the principles of a open justice system because access is something everyone is entitled to.

To dismiss this as arguing for "special status" is to make the argument that you aren't allowed to argue for your own rights unless you also spend the time, energy, and money to argue for everyone else's. For example that an author couldn't sue the government for blocking the publishing of their book unless they also sued the government for blocking the publishing of every other blocked authors book. Not only is that not a duty they have, it's not even clear that they would have standing to do so.

It’s also an extremely well established legal standard for important humanitarian trials, covering many decades across every developed nation on the planet.

Saying anything like “oh Amnesty International is just some NGO to be treated same as the general public so who cares” is completely unrealistic and just fails to be relevant in any way.

Also, if coverage were broad and the principles of open justice were respected, thus providing ample records on what looks like an important trial touching aspects of freedom of the press and the disclosure of war crimes, then AI would not be as interested in seeking to monitor it.

No it’s about their remote access being revoked after it was approved. The special expert observer is status denial is a separate other issue.

From the article:

> “ Amnesty International had requested access to the court for a trial monitor to observe the hearings, but the court denied us a designated seat in court. Our monitor initially did get permission to access the technology to monitor remotely, but the morning the hearing started he received an email informing us that the Judge had revoked Amnesty International’s remote access.”

I really question the motivations of people who would downvote this. It's clear, objective, relevant information.

sadly I think a lot of people see downvote buttons as "I disagree" buttons.

Yeah but how can one disagree with a factual statement, in good faith...?

It's being downvoted because the OP already answered the question. They're being treated exactly the same as the rest of the public.

The rest of the public is also having its remote access revoked?

This is a good question. Coverage of this trial has been hard to come by. Craig Murray is posting details to his blog but he's also not the most objective witness. Still, he wrote the following[0]:

"Magistrate Baraitser then made a statement about access to the court by remote hearing, by which she meant online. She stated that a number of access details had been sent out by mistake by the court without her agreement. She had therefore revoked their access permissions."

When I read this, I thought that only certain people had their remove access revoked, for instance Amnesty International. But then he goes on...

"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'."

That sounds to me like _everyone's_ remote access had been revoked.

[0]: https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2020/09/your-man-in-...

As a counterbalance - reporting restriction from court are highly regulated in the UK. If a person breaks the regulations it is easy to deny them access the next day. No so easy on remote access, hard to control/prosecute contempt of court.

What kinds of regulations could be broken and why is remote access still possible for other trials? What makes this one different?

> What kinds of regulations could be broken

For example, taking photographs in court, or in this case taking screenshots of court remotely.

> why is remote access still possible for other trials?

It's done on a case by case basis by the judge(s) involved in the case. It's not an automatic right.

Audio only, description of the evidence, binding agreements, etc. I really thought that there could be an unsolvable reason behind it.

Invalid counterbalance, in my opinion, when the conduct of the government is in question. This seems to be the most pathetically awkward attempt to close a hearing without outright admitting it that I've ever witnessed.

Amnesty has the same access as the rest of the public.

There are only four seats available in the public gallery, I believe. In the posted article Amnesty International states:

"If Amnesty International and other observers wanted to attend the hearing, they would have to queue for one of the four seats available in a public gallery."

I believe the gallery seats 40 but only four are available because of their rules on social distancing.

No, the article explains their remote access was revoked (unlike many other public observers).

I would be interested to read anything that confirms that some observers have been allowed to view the proceedings remotely.

My understanding is that observers would need to have either one of the four available seats in the public gallery or a seat in the "overflow" rooms next to the court. Please note that the audio in the overflow room is reportedly very poor, what little I've read made it sound unreliable.

If some observers were allowed remote access, I think that is important.

>We've made 3 applications requesting recognition as expert fair trial monitors. Judge states that no 'special provision' will be made for our trial monitor's attendance,”

They requested they get special status as "fair trial monitors". The judge said they get treated like everyone else.

They should have no better access than you or I. They are nobody - a group that got together to push their agenda. They have no standing in court different from any other member of the public.

They can monitor the trial without some special recognition.

> “ They can monitor the trial without some special recognition.”

No, their remote access request was denied. This is separate from any request for standing as an expert trial observer (which is a whole other can of worms).

You are factually wrong. Amnesty was granted remote access, and it was revoked. This has not happened to many other public observers.

It seems you only read the parts about physical access, and the point about space limitation might be valid in that case. But that part is merely a footnote. The real issue is the remote access being revoked.

Actually, around 40 other public observers from across Europe had the same access granted and then revoked. Many of them were from other countries, happy not to need to travel during the pandemic, and they woke up the morning of the first day to discover their access revoked.

So you’re saying the humanitarian problem is even bigger than just Amnesty International. Not even other international observers can see whether the trial is fair.

This is truly alarming, to a much bigger scale, in this case.

This is an Australian citizen being deported by the UK government to the United States for being a journalist. This is something of international significance and international observers should be allowed to be present if the UK wants to have any semblance of being a liberal democracy.