A/HRC/25/60 rule and assessment of the compatibility of the Government’s conduct with the exclusionary rule in secret proceedings becomes difficult or even impossible.28 B. By executive agencies 1. State practice and the distinction between the use of tainted evidence in judicial proceedings and by executive agencies 37. Since the “war against terror” was launched more than a decade ago, executive agencies have been under extreme pressure to obtain information in order to protect their citizens. In this context, the executive use of information obtained by torture or other illtreatment has been publicly condoned by some Governments. Other States assert that its executive agencies would share tainted evidence in “exceptional circumstances” in order to assure the effectiveness of their Executive agencies. 38. Such policies not only weaken the absolute prohibition of torture or other illtreatment but also create a market for torture-tainted information. Inevitably, they raise the question of complicity in torture or other ill-treatment and require a reassessment of the overall responsibility of all States to prevent and discourage acts of torture and illtreatment. States refuse to subject the work of their intelligence and security agencies to scrutiny or international oversight. Similarly, domestic courts follow this lead and reject motions to submit these executive practices to judicial review, even when the issue is the absolute prohibition of torture. This leads to the erroneous conclusion that executive collecting, sharing and receiving of torture-tainted information is not subject to international law.29 There are numerous examples of the use of torture or other ill-treatment when there was no intention of using any information gained in subsequent legal proceedings in which it would a priori be subjected to scrutiny and exclusion, for instance administrative or preventive measures or sanctions against individuals of organizations. 39. There is a tendency to draw a clear distinction between the judicial and the executive use of tainted information by some domestic courts. The latter is often allowed, arguing inter alia that it does not impinge upon the liberty of individuals or that, when it does, – like in powers of arrest – it is usually of short duration. Alternatively, the argument refers to the “ticking-bomb scenario”, that executive agencies cannot be expected to close their eyes to information at the cost of endangering the lives of its citizens. In other words, courts tend to endorse the use of information acquired through torture or other ill-treatment by the executive agencies in all phases of operations except in judicial proceedings.30 In fact, some courts have ruled that the executive agencies have no responsibility to examine the conditions under which of the information was obtained or to change its decisions accordingly or that it is not for the courts to discipline the executive agencies unless by way of a criminal prosecution and that its jurisdiction only exists to preserve the integrity of the trial process. 28 29 30 10 CAT/C/GBR/Q/5/Add.1, (CAT), para. 30.5: The Government stated that it could not confirm or deny if evidence has been ruled inadmissible on the grounds that it was obtained through torture in proceedings where a closed material procedure has been used. See e.g. Gerald Staberock, Intelligence and Counter-Terrorism: Towards a Human Rights and Accountability Framework?, A. Salinas de Frias, K. Samuel and N. White, eds., Oxford University Press, (2012), 351, at 355; Association for the Prevention of Torture, Beware the gift of poison fruit: sharing information with States that Torture, (2014), p.6 See e.g. A and others v. SSHD (2005), op. cit., at paras 69 and 149