Here's something for Marise Payne and Scott Morrison to consider about Julian Assange

Here is something for Foreign Affairs Minister Marise Payne to consider. An Australian citizen, Julian Assange, has found out overnight, in a decision many didn’t see coming, that because of his high risk of suicide and the horrendous jail conditions in the US he would face, he is not to be extradited from Britain. Assange faced charges involving alleged espionage and hacking, arising from the publication in 2010-11 of material showing US war crimes in Iraq.

The appeal process will now begin, with lawyers for the US government announcing they will seek to overturn the ruling of Judge Vanessa Baraitser. The case could go all the way to the UK Supreme Court (equivalent to our High Court) and then potentially to the European courts. This process is likely to take another 18 months to three years.

Given what Baraitser said about the proposed treatment by the US of Assange if it got him onto its soil, Payne should be urging her US counterparts to end its hunting down of Assange. Prime Minister Scott Morrison should do likewise in his first phone call with newly minted President Joe Biden.

Julian Assange has won the first round of the effort to extradite him to the US.Credit: Getty Images

But before arguing the case for urgent intervention by Payne and Morrison, it is perhaps worth dwelling on why Baraitser’s case was an important win for the rule of law and fairness, and that the US ought not expect to be treated any differently to any other government when it comes to detention practices.

Baraitser accepted most of the US legal team’s arguments in the case, including that Assange could get a fair trial, that the case was not about freedom of speech but something more sinister, and that the suffering of Assange’s family in having their loved one taken to the US was not out of the ordinary.

But she would not come at the proposal to place Assange, a man who is at great risk of suicide and who suffers mental illness, in jail conditions that amounted to solitary confinement for years on end. "Faced with conditions of near total isolation … I am satisfied that the procedures (outline by US authorities) will not prevent Mr Assange from finding a way to commit suicide," Baraitser said.

Assange, if extradited, would have been held in a prison where he got one 15-minute monitored phone call with his family a month, where he could not have contact with other inmates, and where any time out of his cell would be in a small room or a cage.

Rather than face such conditions, which could remain in place for the rest of his life, given the maximum penalty for the charges he faces in the US is over 170 years, Assange, Baraitser concluded, would rather kill himself. To visit such a fate on an individual is not something this British court was prepared to do. In this sense Baraitser struck a blow for the rule of law against an American penal system, which is horrifically inhumane, and which showed in this case that when it comes to so called "enemies of the state" it has learnt nothing from the horrors of Guantanamo Bay and other similar facilities.

Of course, though, as noted above, Assange’s troubles are not entirely over because of the lengthy appeal process which both sides can pursue depending on the ruling in respect of Baraitser’s decision.

This is where Payne and the Morrison government come into the picture, albeit they should have been there already lobbying Washington to end this case for some time now.

Fresh from diplomatic manoeuvring and delicate pressure successfully applied to persuade Iran to release Melbourne academic Kylie Moore-Gilbert in November it is time for Payne to immediately pick up the phone to both her counterpart, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, whose term ends in three weeks, and Tony Blinken, the man new President-elect Joe Biden has nominated to the position.

The message Payne ought to be sending is that Assange is an Australian citizen and there is deep concern running across political lines, and in the broader Australian community, about one of its citizens facing more than 170 years' jail for revealing the underbelly of war and being kept in conditions that amount to torture. Australia is a deeply loyal ally but the US, as it did in vastly different circumstances in the case of former Guantanamo Bay detainee David Hicks, can respect that alliance by ensuring this Australian citizen does not face an effective death penalty.

Likewise with Morrison, who, as is the tradition with Australian prime ministers, is likely to receive a phone call from Biden shortly after his inauguration.

Morrison could use that precious window of opportunity to reiterate Payne’s arguments and in particular emphasise that the Australian community expects their governments to take up the cudgels and rescue their fellow citizens from cruelty and torture, which is exactly what Baraitser described.

Beyondblue, 1300 224 636; Lifeline, 13 11 14; Headspace (for those aged 12-25), 1800 650 890; Suicide Call Back Service 1300 659 467.

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