The Day Human Rights Died ... in Plain Sight

I'd hoped never to find myself writing this - and there's lots more to the back story that doesn't need to be revisited - but the injustice meted out to Julian Assange on 10 December 2021 is so clearly politically motivated that we need to amplify the considerable noise we're already making in calling for his release. If we don't, a dangerous precedent will have been set to silence anyone who seeks to hold our governments to account.

Yesterday, the UK's High Court upheld the US's appeal to extradite Assange, effectively surrendering him to the very country whose misdeeds he exposed - the latest ruling in a series of travesties that suggest our legal system has bowed to the relentless pressure the US applied right from the off to get its man.  Had it been anyone else, would the government have spent millions surrounding the Ecuadorian embassy solely on the strength of dubious Swedish allegations?  The overkill had all the marks of bigger fish to fry.

We only need look at the players in Assange's legal journey to start asking questions about dirty deals, complicity, nepotism and compromise:

Keir STARMER - a human rights lawyer no less, and a colleague in the same chambers as Assange's defence team, was head of the Crown Prosecution Service at the time they implored Sweden not to get "cold feet" in pursuing Assange. Now Labour leader, politics was seemingly already at play - was he protecting Tony Blair, who dragged us into the very conflicts that led to Wikileaks publishing the 'Collateral Murder' video?

Chief Magistrate Lady Emma Louise ARBUTHNOT - initially presided over the extradition proceedings until a conflict of interest arose due to her husband's association with British military and intelligence services and further compromised by her son being employed by an anti-data leak company.

District Judge Vanessa BARAITSER - appointed as Arbuthnot's subordinate, and still overseen by her, she rose from obscurity and was soon considered to be taking her orders from above, given her barely disguised bias and hostility towards Assange, often appearing to be reading from pre-prepared statements. The proceedings under her tenure were fraught with obstacles, both physical and communicative, being placed in the way of those seeking to report on developments. More than once she seemed to be in the prosecution's pockets. In the event, she was dismissive of the actual legal basis of the US's indictments, focusing instead on Assange's mental health, thus opening the way for the US to get around this final hurdle by offering assurances about the conditions under which he would be held. It's worth noting that, despite acknowledging the detrimental effect of incarceration on Assange's mental state, she denied his release and sent him straight back to Belmarsh - the UK's supermax facility.

Lord Chief Justice Ian Burnett - one of the two High Court appeal judges who yesterday overturned the January decision not to extradite Assange, he has for 40 years been a friend of Sir Alan Duncan who, in 2018 while Minister of State for Europe and the Americas, described Assange as a "miserable little worm" and didn't hide his glee when Assange was eventually expelled, some say illegally, from the Ecuadorian embassy. Intriguingly, in August this year he and Robert Buckland QC advised the Queen in appointing Vanessa Baraitser as a Circuit Judge - reward for a 'job well done'?

Of course, these are only a few factors in Assange's persecution. The US has been involved in all sorts of deals behind the scenes, including granting Ecuador an IMF loan in exchange for withdrawing his asylum, but this is about the transparent abuse of power over a legal system that used to set the standard for the rest of the world.

Yesterday's ruling was an affront on human rights, demonstrating that the US is trying to dampen scrutiny way beyond its domestic reach.

And all this on International Human Rights Day, upheld by Amnesty International and only days after US Secretary Antony Blinken announced, "Media freedom plays an indispensable role in informing the public, holding governments accountable, and telling stories that otherwise would not be told. The U.S. will continue to stand up for the brave and necessary work of journalists around the world."

There are other players in this saga too, both political and institutional - here's my extended Hall of Shame:

Mortgage Prisoners - Let Battle Commence!

The banks were saying "You can't afford to pay less"!!!

THIS WAS WRITTEN 31 JULY 2018, before Panorama exposed the Cerburus scandal - but ANYONE who feels they were unfairly put on SVR and denied a better rate should put pressure on the banks and regulators.

* * * *

So, after dragging their heels for years, with the FCA (the cornerstone of 'Fairness' purportedly) having proved themselves utterly toothless, the banks are finally going to be writing to mortgage borrowers stuck on high interest rates (typically SVR) before the end of the year to offer them a better deal ... still in no hurry, then ...
 
I've previously blogged here (with links to earlier posts) about their appalling exploitation of borrowers who were already struggling and more recently I've contributed to the Facebook group 'Mortgage Prisoners UK' - people trapped in unfair deals for any number of reasons.

There are all sorts of excuses the banks have used to try to justify applying higher rates but, given that FCA was usually way behind the ball or at best woolly in its guidance, they got away with it by hiding behind the biggest smokescreen of all - that they couldn't disclose the reasons for their lending decisions because they were "commercially sensitive" - which gave borrowers seeking to complain to the Ombudsman (FOS) no grounds to contest. In the meantime they continued to conveniently misinterpret, ignore or straight out disregard the spirit of the guidance provided and the plight of those they knew they had over a barrel.

Well at last, and largely due to Money Saving Expert's relentless efforts to raise the profile of this issue, we have some sort of tenet admission by the industry that things need to change, but the battle's not even half won. Many of those in the Facebook group - possibly the majority - had their Northern Rock loans taken over by the likes of Landmark / Whistletree, who are likely to slip through the net again because they were companies formed specifically to take over NRAM's loan book, are unregulated and failed to offer new products.  Can you imagine having been a Northern Rock borrower and having the decision about who your new provider would be taken away from you, therefore leaving you exposed to being held to ransom?

And that's still not where it ends - people were put on SVR for many other reasons, including arrears resulting from a change in income.  Suddenly they were a higher risk, so they were put on a higher rate at the next anniversary of their loan - despite the guidance saying that affordability checks shouldn't be applied to existing loans.  And, when they were back in the black, banks like Santander KEPT them on the higher rate for an additional year, to prove they could afford to go back to a lower one!

This is in my view the biggest scandal since PPI mis-selling ... and it's gonna run and run a while yet because nothing has been done to address retrospective complaints made to FOS, who are refusing to re-open those cases because they were ruled on at the time.  Well, if PPI claims could be backdated, and we're receiving clear signals from this most recent announcement that the banks are trying to address their impropriety, affected borrowers should be reimbursed for the difference between what they were asked to pay and any cheaper options that should have been made available to them at the time.

I urge any mortgage prisoners to make as much noise as you can to be compensated for the financial and emotional stress you've been subjected to as a result of this issue.

Thanks also to news organisations who have picked up on this - several of whom who have representatives posting on the Facebook page seeking personal stories to feature in articles. Get yours heard!

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