European Court of Human Rights say governments can't carry on turning a blind eye to torture
The European Court of Human Rights have delivered a devastating blow to the British governments argument that it has to find a balance between the danger a suspect represents to society and the risk of him being tortured if he is sent to country's suspected to engage in that practice.
The judges described as "misconceived" the British argument that there could be a justification for balancing the risk of torture against the threat posed to national security.
In an Italian case before the Strasbourg judges in which the British Government had intervened, Foreign Office lawyers had hoped to clear a lawful path for the Government's policy of deporting terror suspects to Algeria and other states which have a history of using torture. The Government has relied on assurances from these countries that they will not use torture against suspects sent there by Britain.
But last week the ECHR said: "the concepts of risk and dangerousness do not lend themselves to balancing . . . [t]he prospect that he may pose a serious threat to the community . . . does not reduce in any way the degree of risk of ill treatment that the person may be subject to on return."
In other words, it doesn't matter how dangerous he is, you still can't send him to places where he might be tortured.
Amnesty International described the ruling as a landmark case and welcomed the re-affirmation of the absolute prohibition of torture and other inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. Ian Seiderman, Amnesty International's senior legal adviser, said: "This judgment should serve as a reminder to all states: not only are they not allowed to commit torture themselves, but they are forbidden from sending anyone to countries where they would be at risk of torture or other ill-treatment."
In the case before the court, the Italian authorities sought to deport Nassim Saadi, a Tunisian national, to Tunisia under the "Pisanu Law" which was originally adopted in 2005 as "an urgent measure to combat terrorism". The Italian authorities argued that he posed a security risk to Italy. But the court found "substantial grounds had been shown for believing that there is a real risk" that Saadi would be subjected to torture or ill-treatment if he were deported.The saddest thing about this is that, since the US have recently admitted waterboarding three suspects, it should now be considered one of the country's that one cannot safely extradite prisoners to. After all, White House deputy spokesman Tony Fratto has not ruled out the US ever using this technique again. Indeed, he has reserved the right for the US to torture again as long as it is done with the President's approval. And the White House argument that waterboarding is not torture is not accepted by 69% of Americans who insist that this does constitute torture. Nor is this argument accepted by the United Nations torture investigator:
"This is absolutely unacceptable under international human rights law," said Manfred Nowak, the U.N. special rapporteur on torture. "Time has come that the government will actually acknowledge that they did something wrong and not continue trying to justify what is unjustifiable."So, as European courts ban their nation states from extraditing prisoners to country's where they face a real danger of being subjected to torture, there are certain high profile al Qaeda suspects that one would have to consider in real danger of being tortured if they were handed over to US authorities. And, were an appeal against their extradition to be launched in The European Court of Human Rights, there is every chance that the court - for the very reasons it gave yesterday - would forbid their extradition.
Who would ever have believed that possible before George Bush came to power and ripped up everything that we had ever admired about the world's leading superpower?
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