In this interview, Randy speaks with Estelle Dehon, public law barrister at Cornerstone Barristers, as Wikileaks founder Julian Assange appears in the Westminster Magistrates Court, London for an administrative hearing relating to his extradition to the United States.

Assange has been kept in prison since April 2019, when he was forcibly evicted from the Ecuadorian Embassy by officers from the Metropolitan Police. Monday’s hearing is one several due to take place before the whistleblower’s extradition trial in February. Assange faces multiple charges in the U.S.

Information Law

Estelle’s information law work involves both freedom of information act (FOIA) cases and privacy-related work concerning data protection. She has represented investigative journalists in challenging refusals to allow access to information. In particular she represents the investigative journalist Stefania Maurizi in two important and high-profile FOIA cases: (1) a long-running FOIA battle trying to access information from the Crown Prosecution Service about Julian Assange, which went to the Upper Tribunal and (2) a successful First-tier Tribunal appeal concerning information held by the Metropolitan Police relating three Wikileaks journalists. As a result of Estelle’s work with journalists on FOIA, she spoke at the 2018 International Journalism Festival on a panel with journalist James Risen and lawyer Jennifer Robinson on “How to get secret and confidential documents. From FOIA to leaks, the struggle to acquire factual information.”

On the privacy/data protection side, Estelle is an expert on the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and advises a wide client base on protecting personal information. She has particular expertise in big data, profiling, artificial intelligence and machine learning, on which she has been advising insurance companies and tech start-ups. She is a member of the European Commission’s Multistakeholder Expert Group on the GDPR, which assists the Commission in dealing with potential challenges in implementing the GDPR across Europe. 

Environmental Law

Estelle is recognised as a leading barrister in environment and planning law, with particular expertise in climate change matters. She is one of the foremost anti-fracking lawyers in the UK. She is currently litigating against the Oil and Gas Authority concerning its regulation of fracking company Third Energy. She appeared for Frack Free Ellesmere Port and Upton at an inquiry opposing frack company IGas’s proposed use of acid to extract shale gas. She also appeared for Friends of the Earth in the six-week Lancashire inquiry opposing fracking by Cuadrilla and then represented a well-known anti-fracking activist in the subsequent Court of Appeal and Supreme Court challenges to Cuadrilla’s permission to frack. Estelle also represented the local community in an initially successful attempt to get an injunction, based on the Civil Contingencies Act, preventing Cuadrilla from starting to frack.

Estelle is also involved in litigation about other fossil fuel-related decisions, including an ongoing challenge to a new permission to allow for large-scale oil extraction, until 2045, via four oil wells in Surrey. She appeared for Save Druridge Bay in a High Court challenge concerning a planned new coal mine in Northumberland and is advising the local community on opposing the expansion of Bristol Airport.Estelle was named as one of The Planner’s Women of Influence in both 2018 and 2019 and was nominated by Chambers & Partners as 2019 Planning and Environmental Barrister of the Year (in the non-QC category).

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Randy Credico, host of Live on the Fly, is a political satirist, civil rights activist and former director of The William Mosea Kunstler Fund For Racial Justice. Randy has an uncanny knack for circumventing mainstream media disinformation and official stonewalling to bring you live-audio debriefings and analysis from lawyers, journalists, whistle blowers, organizers and activists who are fighting to protect Assange from a lifetime sentence behind the bars of a U.S. maximum security penitentiary.

Randy visited Julian at the Ecuadoran embassy in London and is actively coordinating public support for him in the U.S. and abroad. Because Randy is adept at evading news blackouts and cutting through official stonewalling, Live on the Fly delivers gripping live-audio debriefings and analyses from the defense attorneys, witnesses, journalists, activists and many more.

Prior and returning guests to Live on the Fly include renowned investigative journalist and documentarian John Pilger; investigative journalists Stefania Maurizi and Max Blumenthal; animal rights activist and environmentalist Pamela Anderson; whistle blowers Thomas Drake, John Kiriakou, Coleen Rowley and ex NYPD Detective Frank Serpico; whistle blower, human rights activist and former United Kingdom Ambassador to Uzbekistan Craig Murray and many more.

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About the Author

About the Author