Torturers must be brought to justice, insists Geoffrey Bindman QC
Torture is a gross abuse and the cruellest of crimes. The English common law has banned it since the Middle Ages as Lord Bingham confirmed in the House of Lords in A v Home Secretary [2005] UKHL 71.
The Lords ruled that the prohibition was wide enough even to exclude from legal proceedings in the UK evidence “which has or may have been procured by torture inflicted, in order to obtain evidence, by officials of a foreign state without the complicity of the British authorities.”
Lord Bingham cited several of the greatest jurists, including Sir John Fortescue, Blackstone, and Sir William Holdsworth. Fortescue, in the 15th century, pointed out the ineffectiveness of torture as a means of extracting accurate information. “But who is so hardy” he wrote “that having once passed through this atrocious torment, would not rather, though innocent, confess to every kind of crime, than submit again to the agony of torture already suffered.” Sir Edward Coke said torture contravened clause 39 of Magna Carta.
Ius cogens
Britain diverged
