“The principles of the common-law, standing alone, in my opinion compel the exclusion of third-party torture evidence as unreliable, unfair, offensive to ordinary standards of humanity and decency and incompatible with any principles which should animate atribunal seeking to administer justice.” Thus spoke Lord Bingham when he announced the Law Lords decision banning torture from […]

For what it’s worth here is Harold Pinter’s Nobel Prize acceptance speech. He has cancer so he had to deliver the speech via video link from England rather than in person: Nobel Lecture – Literature 2005. As usual he is outspoken and extraordinarily eloquent. Love him or hate him, the man can turn a phrase! […]

The U.K. House of Lords decided yesterday that evidence obtained from a prisoner by the use of torture cannot be used in a court case against that person. There are several terrorist cases working there way through the British legal system, and although no one suggests that torture has been used against any of the […]