9.11.2017 A & Ors v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2004] EWCA Civ 1123 (11 August 2004) "any interpretation of the rights and freedoms guaranteed [by ECHR] has to be consistent with 'the general spirit of the Convention, an instrument designed to maintain and promote the ideals and values of a democratic society [quoting from an earlier judgment]." 456. After referring to ECHR Article 3, in the next paragraph the ECtHR stated that it's "absolute prohibition of torture" was "also to be found … in other international covenants on civil and political rights and the 1969 American Convention on Human Rights." 457. In the same paragraph, after referring to Article 3 of CAT, the court said this: "The fact that a specialised treaty should spell out in detail a specific obligation attaching to the prohibition of torture does not mean that an essentially similar obligation is not already inherent in the general terms of [ECHR] Article 3." 458. V -v- United Kingdom (1999) 30 EHRR 121 is another example of international conventions affecting the construction of Articles of ECHR. In that case, a minor alleged that there was a breach of ECHR Article 3 because he was subjected to what the ECtHR called "criminal proceedings [which] took place over three weeks in public in an adult Crown Court with attendant formality, and that, after his conviction, his name was permitted to be published" (paragraph 75). The ECtHR then went on to refer to the guarantees provided by Article 40(2)(b) of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989), Rule 8 of the Beijing Rules, and the 1987 Recommendation of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe. It then stated that these three documents: "demonstrate … an international tendency in favour the protection of the privacy of juvenile defendants, and … in particular … the UN Convention is binding in international terms on the United Kingdom in common with all other member states of the Council of Europe." 459. It is right to mention that, in the same paragraph, the ECtHR went on to say that: "Whilst the existence of such a trend is one factor to be taken into account when assessing whether the treatment of the applicant can be regarded as acceptable, under other articles of the Convention, it cannot be determinative of the question whether the trial in public amounted to ill-treatment attaining the minimum level of severity necessary to bring it within the scope of Article 3." 460. It is, I think, worth emphasising the general aim of CAT as identified in Furundzija and quoted with approval by the ECtHR in Al-Adsani, when considering the wider context. If courts of states that are parties to ECHR decide that evidence obtained under torture is admissible, then, while not expressly condoning torture, they would effectively be indicating that the use of torture to obtain evidence is not merely impliedly condoned, but is worthwhile, because such evidence may well be taken into account in those courts. 461. The fact that the torture may have occurred in a country not a signatory to ECHR appears to me to be of no real significance. In Soering, the ECtHR held that it was wrong for the UK to extradite a person to Virginia, USA when this would be likely to result in treatment which, if it was in a state which was a party to ECHR would infringe ECHR Article 3. Indeed, the priorities engaged by ECHR as between torture abroad and domestic national security were described thus by Lord Hoffmann in Rehman, in paragraph 54: "The European jurisprudence makes it clear that whether deportation is in the interests of national security is irrelevant to rights under [ECHR] Article 3. If there is a danger of torture, the government must find some other way of dealing with a threat to national security." 462. I turn to the second aspect, namely the effect on an appellant under s25 of the 2001 Act of allowing the Secretary of State to adduce, and SIAC to take into account, evidence in the form of a statement by a http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/2004/1123.html 99/113