A significant step

Support the Lords bill allowing better recourse for torture victims

What do Saudi Arabia, Uzbekistan, the United States and Algeria have in common? All of them officially prohibit the use of torture, and all of them are known to have practised it in the recent past. These countries, and one hundred and forty others, are state parties to the United Nations convention against torture. The convention bans the use of torture in all circumstances, including threats to national security. In theory, it's one of the most widely supported international agreements. If signatures on the convention are any guide, the use of torture ought to be almost unheard of.

The truth, of course, is that the convention is ignored by many of its own signatories. In the aforementioned countries, and many others, state-sponsored torture has become more commonplace than ever. In his new book, Torture Team, Phillip Sands meticulously unpicks the moral corruption in certain parts of the Bush administration which led to the abuses at Guantanamo and Abu Graib, and the use of intellectual contrivances like the ‘ticking bomb scenario' to justify abandonment of baseline principles of international law such as the Geneva Convention.

Of course, the US is far from the worst offender and Geneva was restored by the US Supreme Court. But many states routinely use torture, do so without any challenge and there are massive economic and commercial pressures on western governments to turn a blind eye, as illustrated by our indulgence of Saudi Arabia. Can we do anything about this, apart from joining Amnesty International and hoping that eventually, some day, the spread of liberal democracy will consign state-sponsored torture to the past?

I would argue that a key to eliminating state-sponsored torture is to find some mechanism by which it can be exposed to public view, and by which the perpetrators can be held to account. The Torture (Damages) Bill aims to do exactly that. It was introduced into the House of Lords in February 2008 by Lord Archer of Sandwell QC, the former Labour Attorney-General, and is currently awaiting a second reading. The bill introduces an exception to the State Immunity Act to enable victims to bring civil claims in British courts against states which perpetrate torture, and their officials.

For obvious reasons, survivors of torture often encounter difficulties in securing legal redress in the country where the torture occurred. The victim may try to secure legal redress by initiating criminal or civil proceedings against the offending state or its officials in a foreign court. The main obstacle to such proceedings is state immunity - the doctrine that states and their officials are immune from legal proceedings in foreign courts. This doctrine, embodied in British law in the State Immunity Act 1978, often poses insurmountable obstacles to legal redress.

The problems posed by state immunity may depend on whether the proceedings are brought in the criminal or the civil courts. In criminal law, some inroads have been made into state immunity. In the General Pinochet case, the House of Lords held that in criminal proceedings, the prohibition of torture had become so fundamental that it had become a peremptory norm, overriding national law and diplomatic considerations including state immunity. Unfortunately, in civil proceedings, state immunity is currently an insurmountable obstacle. For example, claims in the UK by some of the British expatriates tortured in Saudi Arabia were struck out by the House of Lords in 2006.

The Torture (Damages) Bill would change this, opening up the possibility that the horrors of torture could be laid bare in the courts, and that the perpetrators (many of them governments anxious to acquire international respectability) would be ‘named and shamed'. The bill would be significant step along the road to eliminating the horrors of torture, and we should support it.

Richard Scorer is a partner in Pannone LLP Solicitors, Manchester and Labour's prospective parliamentary candidate for Hazel Grove. He acts for four of the British men who were detained and tortured in Saudi Arabia

08 May 2008 00:00

 

Comments

• Posted by Mary Martini on 09 May 2008, 11:35:36 PM

  The Father of my Children James Cottle was sytamaticly tortured for over 2 years in Riyadh Saudi Arabia, he suffered at the hands of the representatives of the corrupt Saudi Gov, he was beaten degraded and wanted to die, the cruelty was horrific. Britain and other countries have thousands of ex pats working abroad WHERE is the protection for them, what will happen if 8 more westerners are arrested on false charges and tortured into a confession ?? NOTHING they will be left to die because the Law lords who have the power just don’t care. I was told by our Government after the first 3 months of Jims incarceration that they knew he was being tortured, what did they do about that NOTHING they told me not to alert the media as it would upset Saudi Royals what they really meant was LETS JUST SWEEP IT UNDER THE CARPET and leave these men to rot, I was bemused by the answers I got and at the incompetance at the highest level of Government. James was in the interrogation center for 66 days and nights and suffered daily, they used sleep deprivation and chained him to the door all day and he was beaten every night, Jim lost half of his teeth through the constant beating about the head, and after 2 further years in the political prison there he came home a shadow of his former self, he has PTSD and cannot walk far due to the falaga (beating of the feet) he endured…What we went through as a family was unimaginable NO REDRESS NO JUSTICE the rest of his life on disability pay. James will never forget as the nightmares remind him always, he often thinks of the poor souls that are being tortured now, poor migrant workers in the Kingdom who have no way of seeking justice, the screams and sobs will haunt him for the rest of his life. our UK Gov sent these brits to a special clinic in Copenhagen to prove torture had taken place and the medical information was shared with the Saudi rulers, still after 5 years we wait for justice, this torture bill is important to get rid of this immunity law that protects the high and mighty (especially those with oil) torture victims need the whole world to protest and change this law, the stories will be distasteful but it is a fact of life and torture goes on daily with nobody to put an end to it, lets bring these barbaric practices to an end and stop the hideous suffering.