The farce continues

The Court of Appeal in Stockholm have managed to get hold of a Spotify employee, Fredrik Niemelä, to be one of the lay judges when the Pirate Bay trial is to be tried again. As we all know Spotify is partly owned by the very same record companies who are part in this trial, so any moron would see that Mr. Niemelä ought to be disqualified at once. Except himself, of course:

– Jag har noga övervägt min anställning och kan inte se att det finns risk för jäv. I så fall skulle ingen som någonsin arbetat med försäljning kunna vara nämndeman i ett misstänkt stöldfall, säger han till SvD.se.

I'm sorry? You're saying you wouldn't consider it a problem if you were an Ica-employee and were set to be a lay judge in a trial where Ica was a party? There's no chance of you being biased with your employer sitting on one side of the courtroom? I'm impressed.

After the scandals surrounding the first trial you'd think the Court of Appeal would spend just a little extra time making sure none of the judges was on the entertainment mafia's payroll.

*Update 2009-09-24: Seems like there's more than just a Spotify-employee amongst the judges... I'm fascinated by how impossible it seems to be given a fair trial with unbiased judges here in Sweden. What is this, a banana republic?