Jones v Ministry of Interior of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia and its officials were entitled to state immunity in civil proceedings for damages for torture, because the Torture Convention did not create an exception to immunity in civil claims.
Facts
Mr Jones and several other British nationals claimed that they had been tortured by Saudi police officers while detained in Saudi Arabia. They brought civil claims for damages in England against the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, its Ministry of Interior, and the individual officers responsible. The defendants claimed state immunity under the State Immunity Act 1978.
Legal principle
The House of Lords held that the Kingdom and the individual officers were entitled to immunity. Lord Bingham said that the State Immunity Act 1978 conferred immunity on the state, which extended to its officials acting in their official capacity, and that there was no exception in the Act or in international law for civil claims for torture. Pinochet (No 3) was distinguished, because it concerned criminal proceedings, for which the Torture Convention provided for universal jurisdiction, while the Convention did not require states to provide civil remedies for torture committed abroad. The European Court of Human Rights later held in Jones v United Kingdom that the grant of immunity did not breach article 6.
Related cases on jurisdiction and immunities
- Al-Adsani v United Kingdom (2002) 34 EHRR 11
- Arrest Warrant of 11 April 2000 (Democratic Republic of the Congo v Belgium) (2002) ICJ Reports 3
- Attorney General of Israel v Eichmann (1962) 36 ILR 277
- Belhaj v Straw [2017] UKSC 3, [2017] AC 964
- Benkharbouche v Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs [2017] UKSC 62, [2019] AC 777
- I Congreso del Partido [1983] 1 AC 244
- Jurisdictional Immunities of the State (Germany v Italy: Greece intervening) (2012) ICJ Reports 99
- R v Bow Street Metropolitan Stipendiary Magistrate, ex p Pinochet Ugarte (No 2) [2000] 1 AC 119
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