Loss of face. They put so much money (10M+!) in they would look like idiots if they eventually decided to drop it and Assange gets to make a victory lap on the way to Paddington Station to catch the Express to Heathrow.
There was a warrant out for the guys arrest as far as I'm aware. IYO should we simply let people with arrest warrants walk free?
The correct place to answer the justice question is in a law court.
Basically you're asking the UK to [publicly and openly] forgo the rule of law.
Yes, it's highly annoying that Assange's actions have led to this cost in seeking to fulfil the warrant to have him answer for this alleged crime. But I can't see how we can maintain rule of law if we let people who have allegations to answer in court simply hunker down for a bit and avoid having to do so.
The British legal system may look like idiots to you, but that's immaterial. What they look like if the let Assange walk free is a system in which the rule of law doesn't apply to people who can muster the right social supporters.
All part of government should operate to maximize their appointed goals within a specified budget.
Should we let all departments operate without budget considerations? For road and rail maintenance, is it acceptable to simply let some problems be left alone if the cost goes beyond budget?
Police do not spend infinitive amount of resources on all crimes. Those 10M+ represent assaults that don't get investigated, ironically also sexual assaults. How many future crimes, murders, rapes, or theft is the UK allowing because funding to stop those criminals are being spent on this single case?
The Assange case is like the government building a hospital in the middle of London, employing thousands of employees and treating exactly 1 patient. Telling them to not do so is not to forgo having health care or telling them to disband government, but rather demanding that government funding is held to some minimal standard.
Can we have a rule of law while accused criminals of crimes that has a maximum of 4 years jail time, who then can run to a embassy, be granted asylum, and 8 years later have the case dropped? Is that such an massive loophole? How many potential criminals should we expect to use such loophole over the next 100 years? My prediction: 1 if we count this case.
This[0] from 2016 shows 13,500 outstanding cases of those "who skipped court bail while facing charges including murder, child sex offences and rape" in the UK.
It appears that Assange can be tried for "Bail, failure to surrender"[1][2]. (Maximum 3 months sentence unless sent for trial.) I'm not aware that he's be charged with anything else, so, on the face of it, the money could have been more usefully dispersed to protect the public.
> The resource-usage is wasteful to the point of irresponsible.
Agreed, but that's not how the law works. The law should prosecute everybody they have on their lists, regardless of the economics, it should be a matter of principle rather than one of cost-benefit analysis.
Not saying that this isn't how it often turns out to be, but that's how it should be.