The former Chilean dictator, Gen Augusto Pinochet, is expected to learn today whether last month's ruling in the House of Lords that he is not immune from prosecution will stand or if a new hearing of the argument will take place next year.
The members of the new panel of three law lords and two retired law lords said last night they were anxious to give their decision as soon as possible, but they could not guarantee they would be in a position to make a judgment today.
Lawyers acting for Gen Pinochet are arguing that the House of Lords should set aside its ruling on November 25th that under international law he does not enjoy sovereign immunity from prosecution. That decision enabled the Home Secretary, Mr Jack Straw, to allow the extradition process to proceed to the courts to decide whether Gen Pinochet should be sent to Spain to face charges of murder and torture.
If the case is reheard, lawyers for both sides indicated that legal arguments on behalf of Amnesty International, the Spanish government and other European countries interested in extraditing Gen Pinochet might need to take place at a preliminary hearing to decide which parties should be represented. Yesterday one of the law lords, Lord Browne-Wilkinson, had a last-minute flash of memory and recalled that he was the governor of the British Institute of Human Rights.
Amnesty International meanwhile denied that Lord Hoffman - one of the original law lords - had ever been a member of the organisation. Lord Hoffman's links with the rights group - he is a director of Amnesty International Charity Ltd (AICL) and his wife works for the group's international secretariat - form the basis of the assertion by Gen Pinochet's lawyers that the law lords' ruling gave rise to bias. Ms Clare Montgomery QC, for Gen Pinochet, said Lord Hoffman was duty-bound to reveal his links with Amnesty because it was important that a judge should be seen to be unbiased: "When you consider how it appears, there are reasons to fear that Lord Hoffman, as a director of a company sworn to secure the end of torture and extra-judicial disappearances, would be predisposed to find that no state immunity would attach to such acts."
In a highly unusual departure, Mr Alun Jones QC, for the Spanish government, invited the panel's members to make their own inquiries as to whether Lord Hoffman had mentioned his link with Amnesty to the other members of the original panel when deciding Gen Pinochet's fate. "It would be desirable if these factual matters were set out in your judgment, bearing in mind the heat this issue is causing." However, Lord Browne-Wilkinson appeared sceptical about the suggestion, pointing out that judges and juries were never questioned about their deliberations. He asked at one point during the proceedings: "Where is that all going to stop?"
Mr Jones suggested that Lord Hoffman had declined to mention his family's link with Amnesty because it was well documented and "he would have assumed people knew about it anyway".