OTHMAN (ABU QATADA) v. THE UNITED KINGDOM JUDGMENT 89 practices which it exists to prevent, such a standard of proof is wholly inappropriate. 277. The Jordanian State Security Court system is a case in point. Not only is torture widespread in Jordan, so too is the use of torture evidence by its courts. In its conclusions on Article 15 of UNCAT, the Committee Against Torture expressed its concern at reports that the use of forced confessions in courts was widespread (see paragraph 107 above). The Special Rapporteur has described a system where the “presumption of innocence is illusory” and “primacy is placed on obtaining confessions” (see paragraph 110 above). The reports of Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch support this view. Amnesty International has considered the State Security Court to be “largely supine” in the face of torture allegations, despite, in the ten years prior to 2005, one hundred defendants alleging before the State Security Court that they had been tortured into making confessions and similar allegations being made in fourteen such cases in 2005 alone (see paragraph 113 above). Human Rights Watch’s 2006 Report depicts a system in which detainees are shuttled back and forth between GID officials and the Public Prosecutor until confessions are obtained in an acceptable form (see paragraph 116 above). Finally, the NCHR has, in successive reports, expressed its own concerns about the manner in which statements obtained by coercion become evidence in Jordanian courts (see paragraphs 121 and 122 above). 278. The Court recognises that Jordanian law provides a number of guarantees to defendants in State Security Court cases. The use of evidence obtained by torture is prohibited. The burden is on the prosecution to establish that confessions made to the GID have not been procured by the use of torture and it is only in relation to confessions made before the Public Prosecutor that the burden of proof of torture is imposed on the defendant. However, in the light of the evidence summarised in the preceding paragraph, the Court is unconvinced that these legal guarantees have any real practical value. For instance, if a defendant fails to prove that the prosecution was implicated in obtaining an involuntary confession, that confession is admissible under Jordanian law regardless of any prior acts of ill-treatment or other misconduct by the GID. This is a troubling distinction for Jordanian law to make, given the closeness of the Public Prosecutor and the GID. Furthermore, while the State Security Court may have the power to exclude evidence obtained by torture, it has shown little readiness to use that power. Instead, the thoroughness of investigations by the State Security Court into the allegations of torture is at best questionable. The lack of independence of the State Security Court assumes considerable importance in this respect. As SIAC observed (at paragraph 447 of its determination, quoted at paragraph 46 above) the background to the judges of the State Security Court: