torture as a means to extract information

[Frigid]

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my fellow law-students,

you may have noticed under the Fairfax papers earlier this week, there have been considerable debate abt the use of torture as a means to extract information.

Opinion, Mike Carlton - Unleash the sadist within

a few hours ago, SMH put this up:

Torture should be used on criminals: QC

Mr Faris' blog entry

my comments:

with all due respect mr. faris, but as a lawyer do you think you are qualified to judge whether someone is a suspected criminal or a guilty criminal? if you do then obviously the criminal law traditions of our common law system, with the presumption of innocence and the right to silence, mean nothing to you.

your examples are easy to invalidate. sometimes investigatory authorities can and do get things wrong and capture the innocent. is torture under those circumstances correct? to extract ‘confessions’ from a suspect, how far would the authorities go? who is to say they’ve got the ‘real’ criminal?

under all circumstances, the only tribunal that can judge whether someone is guilty or not is a court of law. thus, to torture suspects for ‘confessions’ or ‘information’ is unacceptable, at all times.

what are your thoughts on this issue?

if we can torture terrorists, what is to stop us from torturing the likes of David Hicks or Mamdouh Habib? what is to stop police from extracting confessions under torture?

it will fucking undermine our whole criminal law system and i will have none of it

[Frigid]

i like ppl who agree with me:

loklan
22/5/2005 | 5:43 pm

All of the examples given presume that those who would apply torture _know_ in advance that the information they need can and will be extracted by the application of torture. Get real, fairy tale absolutes like that only ever happen in Hollywood. The fact that movies like “Dirty Harry” are cited as a references doesn’t do much for the credibility of arguements based on this type of example. Give me an example where, without the aid of hindsight, a government was 100% convinced it had the right guy and could have stopped a ticking bomb attack by application of torture. It just doesn’t happen.

In the meantime, while we wait in readiness for the perfect ticking bomb case (which will never come), we corrode some of the core moral principles that underpin our society, principles such as “innocent until proven guilty”.

In the end it only takes two points to destroy the arguement for torture:
1. What if they get the wrong guy?
2. What if that wrong guy is me?

[stazi]

Coming from Russia, I have heard of many examples where torture has been used to extract information. In some cases the amount of torture is unbearable for the person in question and even if they had not commited a crime, it is much more bearable to fake a confession and go to jail rather than to continue to be tortured.

[011]

Oh man we've been going over this in detail for over a week.

[Frigid]

Originally Posted by 011

Oh man we've been going over this in detail for over a week.

as you can tell, i'm sick of the news/political affairs forum. everyone's too adamant with their views there. but then again, so am i

[011]

Well what we found mainly was that America was in open defiance of so many international conventions that it started to become almost absurd.

The material we were given about it, as predicted, was slanted towards how wrong it was and how wrong America was in doing it.

[MoonlightSonata]

I don't think there's anything wrong with the idea in principle.

However, in reality it is probably far too dangerous to implement

[MoonlightSonata]

hmm, you shouldn't antagonise him

he has a link on his site to miranda divine

[Frigid]

Originally Posted by MoonlightSonata

hmm, you shouldn't antagonise him

hence frigey's "with all due respect mr faris...".

according to one of my uts law teachers, michelle, the phrase is the legal equivalent of "f*cking up yours..."

[stazi]

Originally Posted by Frigid

hence frigey's "with all due respect mr faris...".

according to one of my uts law teachers, michelle, the phrase is the legal equivalent of "f*cking up yours..."

UTS? How come u have a unsw logo in your sig?

[Frigid]

Originally Posted by 1Time4thePpl

UTS? How come u have a unsw logo in your sig?

power to the transferees

[MoonlightSonata]

With respect = They're wrong
With the greatest respect = They're very wrong
With the greatest respect to my learned friend = They're on something illegal

[PwarYuex]

Originally Posted by MoonlightSonata

I don't think there's anything wrong with the idea in principle.

However, in reality it is probably far too dangerous to implement

Exactly, although it must be admitted that the sheer presence of torture 1. lowers criminal activities and 2. has better results in terms of confession.

Then there's the trouble of saying what you can torture people for? What if it's an unusual circumstance- what if they're wrong and everyone knows it, but the laws and regulations mean they have to torture them- what about vice versa?

I think there are a lot of other equally inhumane, yet more acceptable, options available, like putting them in a cell with a couple of "Bears" from Oxford street.

[santaslayer]

I'd like to think the authorities have the utmost greatest suspicions on the potential torturee for it to happen. I'm not against torturing at all. Torturing should only be done with respect to crimes against the state. Murders and other 'petty' crimes as such should follow the current legal system.

[PwarYuex]

Originally Posted by santaslayer

I'd like to think the authorities have the utmost greatest suspicions on the potential torturee for it to happen. I'm not against torturing at all. Torturing should only be done with respect to crimes against the state.

Stalin had great suspicions on the potential torturee, and generally it was for crimes against the state.

I think that if we introduce torture, it'll be by a depraved government, police, or military; in which case I don't want to live in that country.

Also- how would torturing someone who performed a crime against the state going to help? Don't you mean someone who has information pertaining to crimes against the state? In which case- where do you set the boundary? Do you put it in writing, then let people who don't deserve it cop the torture (we all know that doing something that can be proven illegal doesn't mean you deserve such torture) or do we leave it up to the military and police to decide, (in which case we'll get nasty, corrupt police)?