Law Lords tell it as it is...
Seven Law Lords have declared that...
'Secret evidence obtained by torture cannot be used against terror suspects in UK courts' (BBC)
In handing down the ruling Lord Bingham, the former Lord Chief Justice, and head of the seven member panel announced...
"The issue is one of constitutional principle, whether evidence obtained by torturing another human being may lawfully be admitted against a party to proceedings in a British court, irrespective of where, or by whom, or on whose
authority the torture was inflected," said Lord Bingham, writing the lead opinion for the Law Lords, roughly equivalent to the United States Supreme Court. "To that question I would give a very clear negative answer." (NY TIMES)
Amnesty International proclaimed the ruling to be momentous saying that the ruling 'overturned the tacit belief that torture can be condoned under certain circumstances.'
Speaking of English national pride in its common-law rejection centuries ago of torture as a means to an end, Lord Hoffman brought his argument forward to the current era.
One can only hope that this British ruling encourages the rest of the world to take a stand I'll leave the conclusion to Lord Bingham..."In our own century," he wrote, "many people in the United States, heirs to that common-law tradition, have felt their country dishonored by its use of torture outside the jurisdiction and its practice of extra-legal 'rendition' of suspects to countries where they would be tortured."
"The principles of the common law, standing alone, in my opinion compel the exclusion of third party torture evidence as unreliable, unfair, offensive to ordinary standards of humanity and decency and incompatible with the principles which should animate a tribunal seeking to administer justice."
posted by Mark @ 3:52 PM
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