CAT/C/56/D/536/2013 4.6 The State party maintains that the procedures necessary for a private prosecution are well known in the legal community and that the requisite knowledge is easily attainable: the Criminal Code is publicly available and this procedure has been the subject of a published decision of the British Columbia Court of Appeal. 25 The consent of the Attorney General of Canada is required in order for a court to proceed with a prosecution of a non-citizen for acts of torture committed outside the national territory, both for public and private prosecutions. The authority to decide whether consent will be granted is delegated to Chief Federal Prosecutors in consultation with the relevant Deputy Director of the Public Prosecution Service of Canada and is a matter subject to prosecutorial discretion. T he general objective of that requirement is the prevention of unwarranted prosecutions. In the case of a private prosecution of non-citizens for foreign crimes, the consent of the Attorney General is required also as a means of preventing the unwarranted detention of an individual so as not to violate the right to liberty. 4.7 The State party submits that, on 11 September 2011, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, which is responsible for investigations of crimes at the federal level, received complaints concerning the conduct of Mr. Bush but determined that a criminal investigation was not warranted, since it was highly unlikely that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police would be able to gather sufficient evidence to lay an information before a judge. The State party submits that in advance of Mr. Bush’s visits the complainants had sent an information to the Attorney General of Canada seeking an investigation into the allegations of the involvement of the former President of the United States in acts of torture. W hile the Attorney General does not investigate this type of crime, the question of whether to launch an investigation or a possible prosecution was brought to the attention of Canadian officials. The State party submits that, as the complainants had asked the Attorney General to launch a criminal investigation, they recognize themselves that what was needed was an investigation into the alleged crimes in order for the police to gather evidence admissible in a criminal trial and “must be taken to understand that the ‘information package’ was not evidence admissible in a Canadian criminal trial”. The State party submits that the complainants did not seek the consent of the Attorney General to pursue a private prosecution, nor have they explained why they did not seek that consent when they wrote to him. The State party further observes that the timing and volume of information provided by the complainants would not have permitted a thorough investigation within the few weeks before the visit of Mr. Bush. The ti ming was also inadequate for a properly informed decision to be made on the issue of consent under section 7 (7), assuming it had been requested. 4.8 The State party submits that on the morning of Mr. Bush’s visit on 20 October 2011, the complainants’ counsel attended court in Surrey, British Columbia, to lay an information against Mr. Bush and that the justice of the peace scheduled a hearing for the next available date, 9 January 2012, and sent a copy of the information to the British Columbia Crown prosecutor. The Criminal Justice Branch of the Ministry of Justice of British Columbia then contacted the Public Prosecution Service, which informed it that there was no consent of the Attorney General of Canada under section 7 (7) for the prosecution of Mr. Bush, because no request for consent had been made. The State party also observes that since the Royal Canadian Mounted Police had not launched or conducted a criminal investigation, it had not previously sent any potential charges to the Service for review. 4.9 On the afternoon of 20 October 2011, a Crown prosecutor for the Province of British Columbia, exercising the authority of the Attorney General of British Columbia to intervene pursuant to section 579 (1) of the Criminal Code, directed a 25 See Davidson v. British Columbia (Attorney General). 9