72 OTHMAN (ABU QATADA) v. THE UNITED KINGDOM JUDGMENT Kaushal and Others make clear, Article 13 of the Convention cannot be interpreted as placing an absolute bar on domestic courts receiving closed evidence, provided the applicant’s interests are protected at all times before those courts. 220. Second, the Court has previously found that SIAC is a fully independent court (see A and Others v. the United Kingdom, cited above, § 219). In the present case, just as in any appeal it hears, SIAC was fully informed of the Secretary of State’s national security case against the applicant. It would have been able to quash the deportation order it had been satisfied that the Secretary of State’s case had not been made out. As it was, SIAC found that case to be “well proved”. The reasons for that conclusion are set out at length in its open determination. 221. Third, while Parliament may not originally have intended for SIAC to consider closed evidence on safety or return, there is no doubt that, as a matter of domestic law, it can do so, provided the closed evidence is disclosed to the special advocates. Moreover, as the Government have observed, SIAC is empowered to conduct a full merits review as to safety of a deportee on return and to quash the deportation order if it considers there is a real risk of ill-treatment. 222. Fourth, the Court notes that both the applicant and the third party interveners have submitted that involvement of special advocates in SIAC appeals is not sufficient for SIAC to meet the requirements of Article 13. The Court is not persuaded that this is the case. In A and Others v. the United Kingdom, cited above, the Grand Chamber considered the operation of the special advocate system in the context of appeals to SIAC against the Secretary of State’s decision to detain individuals whom she suspected of terrorism and whom she believed to be a risk to national security. The Grand Chamber considered that, in such appeals, the special advocate could not perform his or her function in any useful way unless the detainee was provided with sufficient information about the allegations against him to enable him to give effective instructions to the special advocate (paragraph 220 of the judgment). It was therefore necessary to consider, in each case, whether the nature of the open evidence against each applicant meant he was in a position effectively to challenge the allegations against him (paragraphs 221-224). 223. There is, however, a critical difference between those appeals and the present case. In A and Others v. the United Kingdom, cited above, the applicants were detained on the basis of allegations made against them by the Secretary of State. In the present case, at least insofar as the issue of the risk of ill-treatment in Jordan was concerned, no case was made against the applicant before SIAC. Instead, he was advancing a claim that there would be a real risk of ill-treatment if he were deported to Jordan. In the Court’s view, there is no evidence that, by receiving closed evidence on that issue, SIAC, assisted by the special advocates, failed to give rigorous scrutiny to