In a speech at a seminar on action against trafficking in human beings, co-organised by the Council of Europe and the UK Home Office, which takes place on the International Human Rights Day, Terry Davis criticised suggestions to relax the absolute ban of torture under Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights.

The Government of the United Kingdom has suggested that the application of Article 3 in expulsion and deportation cases should be revised in the light of current terrorist threats with a view to balancing the risks to national security against the risks to the individual of being ill-treated if he or she were expelled from the United Kingdom.

The Secretary General stressed that our governments have the duty to protect us from the threat of terrorism, but they must do so intelligently and effectively. It is misleading and dangerous to talk about the need to strike the right balance between security and human rights. One cannot treat the most fundamental principles of our societies the way the Bank of England fixes interest rates. Security and freedom are not alternatives.

Terry Davis also said that diplomatic assurances and memoranda of understanding do not constitute adequate safeguards to avert the risk of deportees being subjected to torture or other ill-treatment in the countries of destination. The fact that such assurances are sought shows in itself that the sending country perceives a serious risk of the deportee being subjected to torture or other ill treatment.

The Secretary General insisted on compliance with the European Convention on Human Rights in all our member states and at all times. The Convention "balances the rights and freedoms of individuals against the interests of the larger community. It allows for a robust, effective and fair response to threats to society, including terrorism. Those who argue that the Convention erects obstacles in the fight against terror, either have not read it or have not understood what they have read. The truth is that if we are determined to defeat terrorists instead of merely fighting them, we need more human rights, not less" concluded Terry Davis

Ever since September 11, there have been voices, on the other side of the Atlantic, but not only there, arguing that human rights are an obstacle in the fight against terrorism.

This is not something which the Council of Europe will accept. At the Council of Europe we fight terrorists because they want to destroy everything we stand for and everything we believe in. But our activities to strengthen co-operation in law-enforcement and to help the victims of terrorism are not inconsistent with our insistence on respecting human rights and fundamental freedoms protected by the European Convention on Human Rights.

If we want to defeat terrorists, we must remain faithful to our ideas and our values. People around the world must know that we are right, and that terrorists are wrong - that we are just, and that they are criminals. We cannot win a conflict of values with secret prisons, with torture, with inhuman and degrading treatment, with people being kept in legal limbo and deprived of safeguards which are the foundation of our system of democracy and justice.

These methods are dangerous because they are exactly what terrorists want. They want us to give up the most fundamental, defining features of our freedom.

Those who argue that secret detention, torture and the denial of the right to a fair trial have stopped a number of terrorist attacks, should have the moral and intellectual honesty to consider also how many future terrorists these abuses of human rights have helped to recruit.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Against this background, I will conclude with a few words on a very sensitive, controversial and topical issue - the use of torture, which is explicitly and absolutely banned by Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights.

The Government of the United Kingdom has suggested that the application of Article 3 in expulsion and deportation cases should be revised in the light of current terrorist threats with a view to balancing the risks to national security against the risks to the individual of being ill-treated if he or she were expelled from the United Kingdom. As a result, the British Government has intervened in three cases before the European Court of Human Rights to advocate a different view about the use of torture. They do so against the background of case-law which is clear and unequivocal. The Court of Human Rights has consistently and unambiguously affirmed the absolute nature of the prohibition of torture. In the case of Chahal v. United Kingdom in 1996, the British Government invoked the terrorist activities of the applicant and his threat to national security. They invited the Court to allow for a balancing test, weighing the risk of ill-treatment against the danger posed by the person in question to the security of the host nation. In their judgment, the Court rejected the idea that there is any room for balancing the risk of ill-treatment against the reasons for deportation.

In a similar case, Mamatkulov and Askarov v. Turkey in 2005, the Court reaffirmed the absolute ban on transferring any person to another jurisdiction where there are substantial grounds to believe that the person would face a real risk of being subjected to torture, inhuman or degrading treatment.

This case-law, which the Court has described as "settled", is also reflected in the collective position of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe. In the immediate aftermath of the terrorist attacks in the United States of America, the Governments of all the member states adopted Guidelines on human rights and the fight against terrorism in which they confirmed the absolute character of the prohibition of torture and other forms of ill-treatment as set out in article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights.

Again, the issue is not only moral but also practical. Evidence obtained under torture is not only unreliable but also useless. Any tribunal which respects fundamental human rights must declare it to be inadmissible evidence.

The prohibition of torture is and must remain absolute. Diplomatic assurances and memoranda of understanding do not constitute adequate safeguards to avert the risk of deportees being subjected to torture or other ill-treatment in the countries of destination.

Diplomatic assurances can hardly be considered a reliable guarantee against the risk of torture in countries with a poor record of human rights. If these countries fail to respect their obligations under international human rights treaties, how can one be confident that they will respect assurances given on a bilateral basis in a particular case? Or, as our Committee for the Prevention of Torture has pointed out, "The fact that such assurances are sought shows in itself that the sending country perceives a serious risk of the deportee being subjected to torture or other ill treatment."

Our governments have the duty to protect us from the threat of terrorism, but they must do so intelligently and effectively. It is misleading and dangerous to talk about the need to strike the right balance between security and human rights. One cannot treat the most fundamental principles of our societies the way the Bank of England fixes interest rates. Security and freedom are not alternatives, and that is why at the Council of Europe we insist on compliance with the European Convention on Human Rights in all our member countries and at all times.

Contrary to some beliefs, this Convention is not a collection of lax, ineffectual and utopian principles. It is a solid body of international law, which has been tested in courts across Europe as well as the European Court of Human Rights. It was drafted in the aftermath of a war in which terrible atrocities had been committed in the name of intolerable ideologies. Those were dangerous and uncertain times, but the governments of the day had the courage and the wisdom to agree on a set of legally binding principles to protect human rights as a way to make Europe a safer place. I cannot see anything in the international climate today which would justify a change of course.

Of course, we also live in dangerous and uncertain times. Does that justify abuses of human rights in the name of democracy?

In truth, the European Convention on Human Rights balances the rights and freedoms of individuals against the interests of the larger community. It allows for a robust, effective and fair response to threats to society, including terrorism. Those who argue that the Convention erects obstacles in the fight against terror, either have not read it or have not understood what they have read.

The truth is that if we are determined to defeat terrorists instead of merely fighting them, we need more human rights, not less.