continuing to apply it. He noted from paragraph 119 of the report that the network of support schemes for victims of crime was extremely extensive and the Government was to be complimented on that as well.
27.
With regard to article 15 of the Convention, he would again appreciate an explanation of the meaning of the term "oppression" used in paragraph 121. would also like to know why that paragraph referred only to confessions,
He whereas the scope of article 15 was wider and covered statements in general.
28.
Referring specifically to Northern Ireland, he acknowledged the assistance he had received from several non-governmental organizations, including Amnesty International and the Committee on the Administration of Justice, as well as from a lawyer who had been actively involved in defending several persons subject to detention in Northern Ireland and from articles and letters in the press, specifically the Guardian.
29. He requested the United Kingdom delegation to explain how certain features of the provisions relating to the detection of terrorist activities in Northern Ireland were applied in the light of obligations under the Convention, which did not allow derogations from its provisions even in times of emergency. In Northern Ireland, unlike the rest of the United Kingdom, a person might be held by the police under the Prevention of Terrorism Act for an initial period of 48 hours, which could be extended for a further five days on application to the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, before he was brought before a judge. A person could thus be held by the police for questioning without charge for a total period of seven days. Since it had been observed in countries where torture was prevalent that instances of torture tended to occur within the first 48 hours of incarceration, the seven-day period might be regarded as a matter of concern to the Committee. Under the existing legislative regime, moreover, detainees did not have access to legal counsel during the first 48 hours and could effectively be held incommunicado, thereby creating conditions which might lead to abuses of authority by agents of the State. Although provision was made for State-paid doctors to examine detainees, the latter had no right to obtain independent medical advice during the period in question.
30. In addition, the special rules relating to silence and confession and the absence of the traditional British constitutional protection of trial by peers, which had been replaced by the Diplock court system of trial by judge alone, meant that the ordinary protection enjoyed by citizens in the rest of the United Kingdom was not available to persons charged with or suspected of offences of terrorism in Northern Ireland. Such a lack of legal protection was to be noted, particularly when the purpose of detention incommunicado and the intensive 48-hour period of investigation appeared to be to extract an admission from the accused. In that connection, he had been interested to learn from the information he had received that 90 per cent of the cases brought before the Diplock courts relied solely or mainly on confession evidence. Such a situation would, in his view, inevitably put interrogators under great pressure to obtain confessions and would, by implication, create a significant opportunity for conduct which came within the purview of the Committee. He pointed out that a large number of allegations had been brought to his attention concerning ill-treatment in terms of the application to persons under interrogation of varying degrees of physical force.
No comments yet.
Private notes are available after approval.