16 The absolute prohibition on the use of torture in both our law and in international law therefore demands that ‘any evidence’ which is obtained as a result of torture must be excluded ‘in any proceedings’.22 As the House of Lords has recently stated, evidence obtained by torture is inadmissible, ‘irrespective of where, or by whom, or on whose authority it is inflicted’.23 The reason is because of its ‘barbarism, illegality and inhumanity’.24 In People (at the suit of the A-G) v O’Brien,25 the Supreme Court of Ireland held that ‘to countenance the use of evidence extracted or discovered by gross personal violence would . . . involve the State in moral defilement’. Lord Hoffman, in A v Secretary of State (No 2) had no doubt that that the purpose of the exclusionary rule is to uphold the integrity of the administration of justice.26 [33] I revert to the facts of this case. The Hilux and the metal box were real evidence critical to the State’s case against the appellant on the robbery counts. Ordinarily, as I have mentioned, such evidence would not be excluded because it exists independently of any constitutional violation. But these discoveries were made as result of the police having tortured Ramseroop. There is no suggestion that the discoveries would have been made in any event. If they had the outcome of this case might have been different. 22 Although s 35(5) is concerned with the admissibility of evidence in criminal proceedings, the CAT’s peremptory requirement that such evidence be excluded ‘in any proceedings’ is also applicable to our law. The absolute prohibition against torture in s 12 of the Constitution, which is not confined to criminal proceedings, also requires that the exclusionary rule be applied to ‘any proceedings’ in this country. 23 A v Secretary of State for the Home Department (No.2) [2005] UKHL 71 para 51. This case involved the admissibility, before a Special Immigration Appeals Commission, of torture evidence acquired from a foreign intelligence agency without the complicity of British authorities. 24 Nicolas Grief ‘The Exclusion of Foreign Torture Evidence: A qualified Victory for the Rule of Law’ [2006] EHRLR Issue 2 at 206. 25 [1965] IR 142 at 150. 26 A v Secretary of State for the Home Department (No.2) [2005] UKHL 71 para 91.