the type of information that he is willing to receive and the questions that he asks or refrains from asking are his own affair. As I have said, there may be cases in which he is required to act urgently and cannot afford to be too nice in judging the methods by which the information has been obtained, although I suspect that such cases are less common in practice than in seminars on moral philosophy. 94. But the 2001 Act makes the exercise by the Secretary of State of his extraordinary powers subject to judicial supervision. The function of SIAC under section 25 is not to decide whether the Secretary of State at some particular time, perhaps at a moment of emergency, acted reasonably in forming some suspicion or belief. It is to form its own opinion, after calm judicial process, as to whether it considers that there are reasonable grounds for such suspicion or belief. It is exercising a judicial, not an executive function. Indeed, the fact that the exercise of the draconian powers conferred by the Act was subject to review by the judiciar y was obviously an important reason why Parliament was willing to confer such powers on the Secretary of State. 95. In my opinion Parliament, in setting up a court to review the question of whether reasonable grounds exist for suspicion or belief, was expecting the court to behave like a court. In the absence of clear express provision to the contrary, that would include the application of the standards of justice which have traditionally characterised the proceedings of English courts. It excludes the use of evidence obtained by torture, whatever might be its source. 96. Rule 44(3) is in my opinion far too general in its terms to justify a departure from such a fundamental principle. It plainly disapplies technical rules of evidence like the hearsay rule. But I cannot for a moment imagine that anyone in Parliament who considered the statutory power to make rules of procedure for SIAC could have thought that it was authorising a rule which allowed the use of evidence obtained by torture or that the Secretary of State who made the regulations thought he was doing so. Such a provision, touching upon the honour of our courts and our country, would have to be expressly provided in primary legislation so that it could be debated in Parliament. 97. In my opinion therefore, there is a general rule that evidence obtained by torture is inadmissible in judicial proceedings. That leaves the question of what counts as evidence obtained by torture. What is torture and who has the burden of proving that it has been used? In -57-