9.11.2017 A & Ors v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2004] EWCA Civ 1123 (11 August 2004) by torture at the suit of, or within the jurisdiction of, the state in whose courts the evidence is sought to be admitted. I do not think that this would involve a legitimate reading of Article 15. The court should be reluctant to imply words into a provision of an international treaty (see per Lord Bingham in Brown at 703E-F), which is what such a construction involves. The point is underlined by the wide definition of torture in Article 1 of CAT. Furthermore, it seems to me that, where CAT intends the reference to torture to be limited to torture carried out within a particular state's jurisdiction, it says so: see for instance Articles 2(1), 12 and 13. 449. There was also a suggestion that Article 15 of CAT should not apply to the receipt of evidence in civil trials. I can see no basis for such a reading either as a matter of language or as a matter of policy. 450. More specifically, the Torture Committee, established under Article 17 of CAT, had no hesitation in holding in PE -v- France (2002) 10 IHRR 421, that Article 15 of CAT precluded evidence obtained by torture in one country being used in the court of another country, although, on the evidence, the Torture Committee was not persuaded that torture had in fact been used (see paragraphs 6.3 and 6.6). Accordingly, I am of the view that, if a statement, obtained by officials from another state from a third party under torture, is admitted in evidence by SIAC, it would be inconsistent with Article 15 of CAT. 451. Article 15 of CAT does not stand alone in international law by any means. For instance, Article 12 of the UN General Assembly Declaration 1975 provides that: "Any statement which is established to have been made as a result of torture … may not be invoked as evidence against the person concerned or against any person in any proceedings." The Human Rights Committee set up under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966) said the same thing in March 1992. 452. When considering whether or not a person is entitled to (or has had) a fair trial under Article 6(1), regard can be had to the provisions of international treaties, and in particular to CAT. In paragraph 5 of its judgment in Al-Adsani, the ECtHR said this: "The Convention, including Article 6, cannot be interpreted in a vacuum. The court must be mindful of the Convention's special character as a human rights treaty, and it must also take the relevant rules of international law into account …. The Convention should so far as possible be interpreted in harmony with other rules of international law of which it forms part, including those relating to the grant of state immunity." 453. In paragraph 146 of the judgment in Furundzija, quoted in full with approval by the ECtHR in paragraph 30 of its judgment in Al-Adsani, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia referred to: "The existence of [a] corpus of general and treaty rules proscribing torture [which] shows that the international community, aware of the importance of outlawing this heinous phenomenon, has decided to suppress any manifestation of torture by operating both at the inter-state level and at the level of individuals. No legal loopholes have been left." 454. Two earlier decisions of the ECtHR are also in point in relation to torture. In Aydin -v- Turkey (1998) 25 EHRR 251, the ECtHR said this at paragraph 103: "It is true that no express provision exists in the [ECHR] such as can be found in Article 12 of the [CAT Convention] which imposes a duty to proceed to a 'prompt and impartial' investigation whenever there is a reasonable ground to believe that such an act of torture has been committed …. However, such a requirement is implicit in the notion of 'an effective remedy' under Article 13 …." 455. Soering -v- United Kingdom (1989) 11 EHRR 439 is to similar effect. In paragraph 87 the court said that: http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/2004/1123.html 98/113