BEWARE THE GIFT OF POISON FRUIT The various good practices of law enforcement agencies in the collection of evidence might be applied to the use of torture-tainted information. The strict rule of exclusion for any evidence obtained in violation of the prohibition against torture and ill-treatment should be the starting point for any active process of receiving information from another State. As noted in a recent OSCE publication providing guidance for investigations by law enforcement officials, “[t]he information or intelligence obtained by such illegal means, even when not intended to be used in court proceedings, should always be treated in the same way that a court would treat evidence obtained by illegal means and, thus, be disregarded.”48 This, it provides, is because the reliability of such information will always be doubtful. If it is now well understood that confessions are suspicious when they provide the only evidence of guilt, that torture-tainted evidence is inherently unreliable, and the use of such evidence damages the integrity of the judicial process, then it must also be recognised that any use of torture-tainted information in an executive process is just as problematic. Is receipt of torture-tainted information ever really ‘passive’? There is considerable confusion among executive actors as to where activities of agencies changes from mere passive receipt into tacit consent and acquiescence, at which point the receiving agency becomes part of the commission. States have attempted to avoid liability for their role in abuse of persons by describing their role as merely passive, when, in reality, there is a much more active relationship. Often, States exchange information on a continuous and systematic basis, perhaps even subject to a formal agreement. As information is rarely offered without an agreement of intelligence sharing or some similar reciprocal understanding, whether information could ever be received passively is open to some doubt. As a result, even though information appears to be shared passively, international duties and obligations could still apply. 48 36 OSCE, Human Rights In Counter-Terrorism Investigations: A Practical Manual For Law Enforcement Officers (2013), p.28.