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United Nations Convention Against Torture

My Lords, I offer my congratulations to the noble Baroness, Lady D’Souza, on initiating this timely debate and on her contribution to the campaign against torture, together with the work on redress to which she has made so great a contribution. It is literally beyond measure, because not only has it transformed the lives of some who are scarred by torture, but its value lies in the number of those who might have become victims but were spared that fate. The Government have a respectable record in domestic legislation and international initiatives in opposing torture. The differences that may appear in the debate are not of basic principles. The danger is that the devil creeps unnoticed into the detail and we need a ready supply of long spoons. Today the constraints on time limit me to one example, which has already been referred to by my noble friend. I chose it because it may help to prevent what would be a sadly mistaken state before the situation is unamendable. The anxiety is not that our Government would perpetrate torture but that they may turn their backs on the victims of torture perpetrated by others. The offence of the priest and the Levite on the Jericho road was not that they inflicted the injuries that the victim suffered but that they were indifferent to his sufferings. Often for many reasons the victim of torture cannot obtain redress in the courts of the country where it took place. International tribunals are remote and not always user friendly. If he can reach the United Kingdom he may hope to obtain redress here. The machinery is now in place to facilitate criminal sanctions in this country against those who perpetrate torture in other jurisdictions. However, as my noble friend said, civil reparations are a different matter. It is tempting to say that compensation is less important than punishing the wrongdoer, but it may be equally effective as a deterrent, and for the victim it may go some way towards mitigating the harm he has suffered as well as re-empowering him and helping to restore the dignity of which he has been robbed. As my noble and learned friend may know, Redress has pressed for that remedy to be provided in this jurisdiction. It is no academic point; even recently British nationals have complained of being subjected to torture in Saudi Arabia. The principal obstacle is the doctrine of state immunity—that the government of one state are immune from the domestic jurisdiction of another. It was established in the Pinochet case that in criminal proceedings for torture that objection cannot be sustained because torture, which is a crime in international law, can never qualify as an act performed by a head of state in the exercise of his functions. However, the position in civil proceedings is far from clear. When the convention on jurisdictional immunity, to which my noble friend referred, was being discussed and drafted, a number of anxieties were expressed that it might actually make the situation worse. I could elaborate on that but the clock, I fear, has spared your Lordships a lecture on the subject from me. No doubt my noble and learned friend and I can discuss it later. It is not the occasion to discuss the introduction of protocols and reservations but I hope that the Government will not ratify the convention until there has been an opportunity for a full debate on that subject. Of course I understand that parliamentary time does not lie wholly in the gift of my noble and learned friend, but the timing of the ratification is in the gift of the Foreign Office. I ask my noble and learned friend for an assurance that there will be no further irrevocable steps without a debate. I ask on behalf not of lawyers or academics or even of Redress but of victims and potential victims of torture whose hopes rest on this country.