Biased Pirate Bay Judge Judged by More Biased Judges
Written by Ernesto on May 20, 2009
http://torrentfreak.com/biased-pirate-bay-judge-judged-by-more-biased-judges-090520/To determine if the verdict in the Pirate Bay case was biased, the connections of Judge Tomas Norström to national and international pro-copyright lobby groups will be reviewed by another judge. However, the judge that was initially appointed has already been replaced because she was linked to the same organizations as Norström, and her replacement is not exactly unbiased either.
Pirate Bay judge Tomas Norström’s objectivity has been called into doubt because of his ties to national and international pro-copyright lobby groups. Furthermore, one of the defense lawyers claimed to have evidence that Norström was handpicked and not assigned to the case randomly.
To investigate these accusations of bias, the appeal court appointed a judge, Ulrika Ihrfelt. Her task is to decide whether or not Norström’s verdict could have been biased since this issue must be resolved before they will look into the appeal request. If it’s determined that Norström was indeed biased, the case will be resubmitted to the district court for retrial, meaning that an appeal is not needed at this stage.
However, soon after the appointment of Ulrika Ihrfelt, it became known that she too had been a member of the same pro-copyright organizations as the ‘biased’ judge. The appointment was criticized by several judicial analysts who said she wasn’t fit either. Judicial praxis dictates that the court must not only be unbiased, but also be BELIEVED to be unbiased, which is clearly not the case here.
As a consequence and in order to avoid more negative press, the appeal court sent out a press release today in which they announce that Ihrfelt has been taken off the case. She has been replaced by three new judges from a separate division of the court.
In the press release, the appeal court writes: “The reasons for this is that the question of whether the original judge was biased needs to be tried by other judges other than those that later may have been given the case. Furthermore, because of the content of the claim of bias, it has been deemed proper that the question should be answered by a division that is not specialized in copyright.”
“None of the three judges are or have been members of the [pro-copyright] organizations in question,” the appeal court announced. But is this really the case?
With a simple Google search Pirate Bay’s Peter Sunde has already discovered that one of the replacements, Anders Eka, is connected to the The Stockholm Center for Commercial law, together with movie industry lawyers Monique Wasted and Peter Danowsky who represented the music industry in the Pirate Bay trial.
Nevertheless, the appeal court does not intent to replace the new judge(s). “The group Anders Eka is member of has no connection to copyright issues and the interests that are present in the case. I cannot see how this specific connection could lead to that Anders Eka isn’t suitable to try the question of bias,” Fredrik Wersäll, the president of the appeal court said.
The court will not look at the appeal case before the question of Norström’s bias is settled. The bias issue will be given priority and should be settled “in a few weeks at the maximum”, according to the appeal court president.
With all the commotion and judicial incompetence displayed after the Pirate Bay trial it seems almost unthinkable that a retrial won’t be granted. It is therefore no surprise that the entertainment industries try to get some cash off the defendants before it’s too late.
