62. I regret that the House should lend its authority to a test which will undermine the practical efficacy of the Torture Convention and deny detainees the standard of fairness to which they are entitled under article 5(4) or 6(1) of the European Convention. The matter could not be more clearly put than by my noble and learned friend Lord Nicholls of Birkenhead in the closing paragraph of his opinion. Disposal 63. The Court of Appeal were unable to conclude that there was no plausible suspicion of torture in these cases. I would accordingly allow the appeals, set aside the orders made by SIAC and the Court of Appeal, and remit all the cases to SIAC for reconsideration in the light of the opinions of the House. LORD NICHOLLS OF BIRKENHEAD My Lords, 64. Torture is not acceptable. This is a bedrock moral principle in this country. For centuries the common law has set its face against torture. In early times this did not prevent the use of torture under warrants issued by the King or his Council. But by the middle of the 17th century this practice had ceased. In 1628 John Felton assassinated the Duke of Buckingham. He was pressed to reveal the names of his accomplices. The King’s Council debated whether ‘by the Law of the Land they could justify the putting him to the Rack’. The King, Charles I, said that before this was done ‘let the Advice of the Judges be had therein, whether it be Legal or no’. The King said that if it might not be done by law ‘he would not use his Prerogative in this Point’. So the judges were consulted. They assembled at Serjeants’ Inn in Fleet Street and agreed unanimously that Felton ‘ought not by the Law to be tortured by the Rack, for no such Punishment is known or allowed by our Law’: Rushworth, Historical Collections (1721) vol 1, pages 638-639. 65. Doubt has been cast on the historical accuracy of this account: Jardine, ‘Use of Torture in the Criminal Law of England’, (1837), pages 61-62. The precise detail does not matter. What matters is that never again did the Privy Council issue a torture warrant. Nor, after 1640, did -47-