The ruling turned on whether the Swedish prosecutor who made the extradition request was a competent “judicial authority” under the terms of the European extradition treaty. Judge Phillips, who voted with the majority, said the question “has not been easy to resolve,” but the court majority’s finding that the Swedish prosecutor was a competent authority made the extradition request lawful.

... Dinah Rose, one of Mr. Assange’s lawyers, rose to request a two-week delay in implementation of the decision, saying the court appeared to have made its ruling on a fine point of European law that had not been raised by either side at an earlier Supreme Court hearing on the case.

In granting that request and agreeing to consider a new submission from Mr. Assange’s lawyers, the court effectively opened, at least for now, a fresh opportunity for Mr. Assange to delay — and what legal experts said was a narrow and improbable chance to avoid — his forcible removal to Sweden for at least several weeks. The delay in settling the extradition case in Britain appeared likely to put back indefinitely any moves the United States may have in hand to open a new round of extradition hearings to transport Mr. Assange to the United States to face charges for his role in overseeing the release by WikiLeaks over the last two years of hundreds of thousands of secret American military and diplomatic cables.