statement to issue a certificate under section 21 if, in default of any additional information, SIAC is then bound to cancel that certificate under section 25 because the members cannot look at the critical statement? 135. My noble and learned friend, Lord Nicholls of Birkenhead, seeks to resolve the dilemma on the basis that the Secretary of State’s certificate is in the nature of an essential preliminary step, which will be short-lived in its effect if SIAC considers that the necessary reasonable grounds do not exist. So the definitive decision is taken by SIAC, which is subject to the ethical rule that information obtained by torture is not admissible in court proceedings as proof of facts. Potentially attractive though such an analysis is, it is rather difficult to square with the fact that, if there is no appeal, SIAC is not required to review the Home Secretary’s certificate for six months after it has been issued: section 26(1). A certificate which Parliament regards as sufficient warrant for a suspect’s detention for six months is not, in essence, short-lived or a mere preliminary step. And, the appellants concede, such a certificate can properly be based on a statement obtained by torture. 136. According to the appellants, it is an abuse of process for the Home Secretary to produce evidence of a statement obtained by torture in proceedings before SIAC. In my view it is an abuse of language to characterise the Home Secretary’s action as an abuse of process. He does not instigate the process before SIAC and seeks no order from the Commission: he merely seeks to resist an appeal brought against his decision or to withstand a review of that decision. It was perfectly proper for him to rely on the statement when issuing his certificate. There is therefore no abuse of executive power in this country for SIAC to punish by rejecting the statement and it is no part of the function of British courts to attempt to discipline officials of a friendly country. Besides anything else, the idea that foreign torturers would pause for a moment because of a decision by SIAC to reject a statement which they had extracted verges on the absurd. 137. One therefore comes back to the centuries-old view that statements obtained by torture are unacceptable. To rely on them is inconsistent with the notion of justice as administered by our courts. The Home Secretary does not defile SIAC by introducing such a statement, but he does ask it to rely on a type of statement which British courts would, ordinarily, reject on broad grounds of public policy. SIAC is, of course, different in many ways, as the relevant legislation and regulations show. Therefore, if there were any sign that Parliament -74-