BRITAIN: The cases of some 30 terror suspects facing deportation from the United Kingdom will have to be reviewed following yesterday's Law Lords' confirmation that secret evidence which might have been obtained by torture is inadmissible in Britain's courts.
The ruling was immediately seen as a further setback for the Labour government's anti-terrorism strategy. It is understood not one individual has been deported from Britain since prime minister Tony Blair declared "the rules of the game" had changed in the aftermath of the London bombings on July 7th.
However, home secretary Charles Clarke insisted the ruling would have "no bearing" since the government did not use or rely on evidence it knew or suspected had been obtained by torture.
Accepting the ruling, Mr Clarke said: "We have always made clear we do not intend to rely on or present evidence to the Special Immigration Appeals Commission which we know or believe to have been obtained by torture. So this issue is hypothetical."
Overturning a Court of Appeal finding that evidence obtained by improper methods could be used, provided the British authorities themselves were not involved, one member of the panel, Lord Carswell, said: "The duty not to countenance the use of torture by admission of evidence. . . must be regarded as paramount, and to allow its admission would shock the conscience, abuse or degrade the proceedings and involve the state in moral defilement."
Conservative shadow attorney general Dominic Grieve echoed Mr Clarke's view that the ruling confirmed existing law. It was, he said, "a completely correct restatement of a law that has existed for hundreds of years".
However, that restatement won by eight of the original 10 foreign detainees held in Britain means the Special Immigration Appeals Commission will have to review the evidence in their cases, and those of more than 20 others arrested in recent months on suspicion of terrorist involvement and facing deportation.