Torture (Damages) Bill [HL]

My Lords, I, too, extend my warmest and sincerest congratulations to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Archer, on initiating and drafting the Bill and on the most splendid way in which he presented his case this morning. Victor Hugo, in 1874, said that torture had virtually been abolished the world over. That was a supremely optimistic remark but most certainly there had been a diminishing curve of popularity in the incidence and use of torture. Even in Greek and Roman times, there were critics and, in the 18th century, Beccaria condemned torture in his monumental work on crime and punishment. The liberal thinkers of France in the latter part of the18th century did likewise. I mention those facts in order to point out the crushing irony that all that seemed to be reversed completely in the 20th century with the fascist regimes of Germany and Italy and with Stalin’s USSR. Indeed, even in the 21st century, from Rwanda to Bosnia and from Beijing to Guantanamo Bay, we have torture again as a feature of policy and an instrument of terror. I appreciate the arguments that have been put forward by everyone who has spoken in the debate, which I regard as being irrefutable in support of the Bill. In the period immediately after the Second World War, international law made a great leap forward. Previously, it had been concerned with states and parties, with one exception, which was the law of piracy, when it had looked to the individual. Not only did international law then condemn torture but it looked at the situations of the torturer and the victim. That led to the torture convention of 1984 and, as we know, its incorporation into our law in the Criminal Justice Act 1988. In those circumstances, I think that the ordinary, intelligent, fair-minded citizen in this land would be pardoned if he were to say that, as there is universality of approach in relation to the criminal situation, there must be a parallel approach equally universal and equally comprehensive in relation to the civil rights of a person who has suffered torture. That is a massive lacuna in the law and the House is deeply indebted to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Archer, to REDRESS and to similar bodies for their attempts to close that lacuna. Section 1 of the State Immunity Act 1978 gives blanket immunity to all states. Sections 2 to 11 deal with specific exemptions, of which torture is not one. Although only 10 years separate the State Immunity Act 1978 and the Criminal Justice Act 1988, I believe that they represent two different watersheds. One could say the same of the 1978 Act and the torture convention of 1984. In that context, we have to appreciate the importance of this Bill. I appreciate that the Government may not welcome it with incandescent enthusiasm and I appreciate that that may not be the personal view of the Minister who is to reply to this debate. However, I urge on him the following considerations. I believe that most countries have interpreted Article 14 of the convention as being of universal application and not just a precept with which a particular state should be concerned, although that has been the interpretation relied on by the United States of America. One can argue that there was essentially an international approach to the universal principle of the right of the tortured to be compensated or the right of his estate to be compensated. I have no doubt that the fact that some 130 countries have already ratified the 1984 convention has essentially, although not technically, established a basis for an international-law approach to this matter, so it would not be proper to argue that one is taking a step that goes beyond international thinking in this matter. On the irony of this situation in relation to the position of the United Kingdom, it has been possible, since the Crown Proceedings Act 1947, to bring an action against the state. Previous to that, it could be done only with the consent of the state. We all remember Terence Rattigan’s play ““The Winslow Boy””, from the Archer-Shee case of 1902 or thereabouts, when of course a government department could be sued only if it consented to be sued. The year 1947 changed all that. If it is right that a Government and their agencies should have to stand in a court of law and be responsible for acts of negligence and remission, how much more necessary is it that they should be there if there has been a deliberate cold-blooded act of torture? There can be no justification for rejecting the principle as a principle. I do not believe that it is open to massive abuse at all. However, the other side of the coin is that torture is obscene and reprehensible; it is the worst invasion possible of the human body and human dignity. In those circumstances, all manner of resolutions condemning torture become irrelevant unless the victim is in a situation to claim proper compensation. I believe that the failure to change that situation will make a mockery of all that has been achieved in relation to the universal criminalisation of torture. I respectfully suggest to the Minister that it would be eternally to the credit of Britain, which has shown so much initiative in the field of justice and human liberty over the centuries, to say now that, whatever the minor difficulties might be, the principle is of such massive sovereignty that it has to be accepted. We should give every support to this legislation.