repressed vigorously is conduct on [the authorities’] part that shocks the community” and considered (para 69) that while the doctrines of oppression and inducements were primarily concerned with reliability, the confessions rule also extended to protect a broader concept of voluntariness that focused on the protection of the accused’s rights and fairness in the criminal process. Abuse of process 18. The appellants submit, in reliance on common law principles, that the obtaining of evidence by the infliction of torture is so grave a breach of international law, human rights and the rule of law that any court degrades itself and the administration of justice by admitting it. If, therefore, it appears that a confession or evidence may have been procured by torture, the court must exercise its discretion to reject such evidence as an abuse of its process. 19. In support of this contention the appellants rely on four recent English authorities. The first of these is R v Horseferry Road Magistrates’ Court, Ex p Bennett [1994] 1 AC 42. This case was decided on the factual premise that the applicant had been abducted from South Africa and brought to this country in gross breach of his rights and the law of South Africa, at the behest of the British authorities, to stand trial here, and on the legal premise that a fair trial could be held. The issue, accordingly, was whether the unlawful abduction of the applicant was an abuse of the court’s process to which it should respond by staying the prosecution. The House held, by a majority, that it was. The principle laid down most clearly appears in the opinion of Lord Griffiths at pp 61-62: “. . . In the present case there is no suggestion that the appellant cannot have a fair trial, nor could it be suggested that it would have been unfair to try him if he had been returned to this country through extradition procedures. If the court is to have the power to interfere with the prosecution in the present circumstances it must be because the judiciary accept a responsibility for the maintenance of the rule of law that embraces a willingness to oversee executive action and to refuse to countenance behaviour that threatens either basic human rights or the rule of law. -11-