§ Lord Monsonasked the Leader of the House:
Whether Parliament need not be inhibited by the sub judice rule when debating the case of General Pinochet from referring to events in Chile before a certain date, as claimed by Lord Thomas of Gresford (H.L. Deb., 6 July, col., 806); and if so, what is the approximate date of the most recent event in Chile that can be cited without infringing the sub judice rule. [HL3559]
§ The Lord Privy Seal (Baroness Jay of Paddington)As was made clear in the reply given by the Home Secretary on 15 April to a question in another place (col. 314), in coming to the decision required of him by the Extradition Act and the European Convention on Extradition, my right honourable friend had regard to what was alleged in the request for Senator Pinochet's extradition to have happened before 8 December 1988, when the Senator lost immunity, but only in so far as it was relevant to the criminality of what was alleged to have happened after that date. He had regard to the question whether acts of torture after that date were done in the course of a conspiracy begun before, such as to amount to an accusation of a conspiracy to torture continuing after that date for the purposes of section 7(5) of the Act. Accordingly, Parliament is inhibited 109WA by the sub judice rule when debating the case of Senator Pinochet from referring to events in Chile relevant to the extradition proceedings both before and after that date.