9.11.2017 A & Ors v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2004] EWCA Civ 1123 (11 August 2004) 3. An order from a superior officer or a public authority may not be invoked as a justification of torture." Article 4: "1. Each State Party shall ensure that all acts of torture are offences under its criminal law. The same shall apply to an attempt to commit torture and to an act by any person which constitutes complicity or participation in torture. 2. Each State Party shall make these offences punishable by appropriate penalties which take into account their grave nature." Article 12: "Each State Party shall ensure that its competent authorities proceed to a prompt and impartial investigation, wherever there is reasonable ground to believe that an act of torture has been committed in any territory under its jurisdiction." Article 15 has been the particular focus of argument in these appeals. It provides: "Each State Party shall ensure that any statement which is established to have been made as a result of torture shall not be invoked as evidence in any proceedings, except against a person accused of torture as evidence that the statement was made." 172. Part II of CAT (Articles 17 – 24) established the Committee against Torture, and made provision for its membership and functions. By Article 19 the States Parties are to submit regular reports to the Committee concerning measures taken by them to give effect to their undertakings under CAT. In the course of argument reference was made to the first such report submitted by the United Kingdom in 1992. Then Article 22(1) provides: "A State Party to this Convention may at any time declare under this article that it recognizes the competence of the Committee to receive and consider communications from or on behalf of individuals subject to its jurisdiction who claim to be victims of a violation by a State Party of the provisions of the Convention…" The Committee's consideration of such communications is then provided for, and Article 22(7) states: "The Committee shall forward its views to the State Party concerned and to the individual." In the course of argument we were referred to certain opinions of the Committee arrived at under Article 22. THE OUTLINE FACTS 173. As I have said, the ten appellants are all persons in respect of whom the Secretary of State issued a certificate under ATCSA s.21, and whose appeals to SIAC under s.25 have been dismissed. On 29 October 2003 SIAC delivered an open generic judgment (to which I have already referred) which sets out general conclusions. It delivered also specific open judgments in each of the appeals, as well as closed judgments to which it will be unnecessary to make any reference. As recorded at paragraph 121 of the open generic judgment, it was the Secretary of State's case "that all of the Appellants were linked to groups or networks linked to Osama bin Laden and Al Qa'eda". Mr Emmerson made it admirably clear at the outset that he did not pursue any points on SIAC's individual decisions relating to his eight clients; his case stands or falls by reference to general arguments which go, in essence, to the integrity of the open generic judgment. In particular Mr Emmerson pressed the argument relating to the admission of evidence obtained by torture, which as I have said is by far the most important point in the case. Mr Gill had one specific submission relating to his client D, which was to the effect http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/2004/1123.html 42/113