News - The Supreme Court

Access to The Supreme Court building: 1 & 2 Feb 2012

Julian Assange v Swedish Judicial Authority appeal hearing

Members of the public wishing to visit the building on Wednesday 1 February or Thursday 2 February are advised that we are expecting a large number of visitors on these days, and those not specifically coming to observe the hearings in Julian Assange v Swedish Judicial Authority (UKSC) or Sans Souci Ltd v VRL Services Limited (JCPC, Jamaica) are encouraged to choose other days to visit the building.

The Supreme Court has scheduled the Assange hearing to be in the largest courtroom, and has made arrangements for an 'overflow' courtroom where a live audio/visual feed of the proceedings will be shown. Even with these arrangements in place, we do expect that demand for seats is likely to exceed the number of spaces we can safely make available to the public. For this reason, a queuing system will be put in place on the two days of the hearing, with those arriving earliest being offered seats in the courtroom; once that is full, a further tranche of visitors will be allowed into the overflow room. The court building will open to the public at 09.30 on both days; the hearing begins at 10.30 on both days.

Please note that, in line with the Court's usual practice, items of clothing or other materials bearing messages that undermine the diginity of the court or which seek to interfere with the proper administration of justice will not be permitted into the building.

The Supreme Court does reserve the right to suspend temporarily admission to the building, should the number of visitors and professional court users exceed our safe capacity.

Those interested in the case are reminded that the proceedings will be streamed live via the Sky News website

via supremecourt.gov.uk