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Kim Dotcom says New Zealand Supreme Court will rule against him in MegaUpload extradition case
By Chris Cooke | Published on Tuesday 18 August 2020
MegaUpload founder Kim Dotcom has been particularly chatty on Twitter of late, apparently because it’s “election season”. Though he has also found time to comment on the ongoing extradition proceedings against him in New Zealand.
The US authorities are still trying to extradite Dotcom to face charges of criminal copyright infringement in the American courts, all in relation to his role running the long-defunct file-transfer platform MegaUpload.
If that ever happens, the music and movie industries are still also hoping to pursue civil action against Dotcom and the old MegaUpload business for damages over all the copyright infringement they allegedly facilitated and enabled.
However, extraditing Dotcom from his adopted home of New Zealand to the US has proven very tricky indeed, even though in the main the country’s courts have ruled that there are grounds for said extradition. We now await a Supreme Court ruling on the matter.
Tweeting about all that last week, Dotcom admitted that he expects to lose the Supreme Court case. Because, he said, three of the judges are biased as a result of them being appointed by ministers allied to the country’s National Party, which was in power when NZ and US officials collaborated on shutting down MegaUpload and arresting Dotcom et al back in 2012.
In a since deleted tweet, he wrote: “As I said before, the Supreme Court is going to do a hatchet job in my case because of National appointed judges: France, Glazebrook and O’Regan (the majority). In my opinion their loyalty is not with the law but with the party that appointed them. It’s a political case. You’ll see”.
However, he had good words to say about one of the judges, Helen Winkelmann, who was appointed Chief Justice last year. And who, back in 2012, as a then high court judge, ruled that the warrants used to raid Dotcom’s home as part of the investigations into MegaUpload were invalid.
Dotcom tweeted: “I believe in the Chief Justice of New Zealand Helen Winkelmann. She knows what her fellow judges are doing and why. She understands the injustice my family had to endure. She knows the US government is a rogue operator and how important it is for New Zealand to regain independence”.
Even if the Supreme Court does green light Dotcom’s extradition, there will still be one more stage of the process to go through, as the whole thing will have to then be approved by the country’s current justice minister. And his decision will also be subject to appeal.
Meanwhile, Dotcom insists that – if and when the Supreme Court does rule against him – there’ll be plenty of academics and experts ready to scrutinise that decision.
Elsewhere in his flurry of tweets he wrote: “Dear Supreme Court Judges, over 20 law schools have declared interest to peer review your upcoming judgment in my case. Don’t underestimate the power of the internet. It’s only the reputation of the New Zealand judiciary on the line, and yours. No pressure. Take your time”.
And also: “After the Supreme Court decision in my case the drafters of the 2008 New Zealand Copyright (New Technologies) Amendment Act will explain the intention of the act and how it protects internet service providers like MegaUpload from any criminal liability for user conduct. Let’s go!”
