80 OTHMAN (ABU QATADA) v. THE UNITED KINGDOM JUDGMENT 247. The applicant submitted that the flagrant denial of justice test is qualitative not quantitative. “Flagrant” meant “nullifies the very essence of the right” but did not require the right to be completely nullified. It also meant the unfairness had to be manifest and predictable. 248. The applicant submitted that a flagrant denial of justice would occur at his re-trial if the following factors were considered cumulatively: (i) that the State Security Court was a military court, aided by a military prosecutor; (ii) that he was a notorious civilian terrorist suspect; (iii) that the case against him was based decisively on confessions when there was a very real risk that those confessions had been obtained by torture or other ill-treatment by military agents; and (iv) that the State Security Court would not investigate properly whether the confessions had been obtained by torture or ill-treatment. 249. In respect of the military composition of the State Security Court, the applicant relied first, on the Human Rights Committee’s condemnation of the practice of trying civilians before military courts (see paragraphs 157–159 above). Second, he relied on specific international criticism of Jordan’s State Security Court. This criticism centred on: the possibility of extended periods of incommunicado detention without judicial review (at the instance of the Public Prosecutor, a military officer); the State Security Court’s failure to investigate properly allegations of torture; and the court’s lack of independence and impartiality. The applicant also relied on the unfairness of Jordanian rules of evidence relating to confessions. Even on the evidence of Mr Al-Khalila and Mr Najdawi, it appeared that the Court of Cassation had taken the approach that, once a confession was repeated before the Public Prosecutor, it was for the defendant to prove that the Prosecutor was complicit in obtaining it involuntarily. If the defendant did not so prove, the confession was admissible regardless of any prior misconduct by the GID. 250. In this context, he submitted that the State Security Court in Jordan was even more open to question than the Turkish State Security Court considered in Ergin (no. 6), cited above. Both Al-Moayad, cited above and Drozd and Janousek v. France and Spain, 26 June 1992, Series A no. 240 suggested that trial by a military court would, in itself, amount to a flagrant breach of Article 6. 251. In respect of his complaint regarding the possible admission of evidence obtained by torture, the applicant relied on the further evidence he had obtained (summarised at paragraphs 102–105 above), which showed that: (i) the confessions of Al-Hamasher and Abu Hawsher were the predominant basis for his convictions at the original trials; and (ii) these men and some of the other defendants at each trial had been held incommunicado, without legal assistance and tortured. The applicant maintained that Ms Refahi’s evidence was correct: the use of a fingerprint on a statement was a clear sign of a false confession (see paragraph 104