The Republic of Ireland -v- The United Kingdom; ECHR 18-Jan-1978 The UK lodged a derogation with the Court

as regards its human rights obligations in Northern Ireland because of the need to control terroist activity. The Government of Ireland intervened. From August 1971 until December 1975 the UK authorities exercised a series of extrajudicial powers of arrest, detention and internment in Northern Ireland. The case concerned the Irish Governments complaint about the scope and implementation of those measures and in particular the practice of psychological interrogation techniques (wall standing, hooding, subjection to noise and deprivation of sleep, food and drink) during the preventive detention of those detained in connection with acts of terrorism. Held: The IRA had for a number of years represented a particularly far-reaching and acute danger for the territorial integrity of the United Kingdom, the institutions of the six counties and the lives of the provinces inhabitants. However, the Court found the methods to have caused intense physical and mental suffering. The article 15 test was accordingly not discussed, but the Court made valuable observations about its role where the application of the article is challenged: (a) The role of the Court. The limits on the Courts powers of review are particularly apparent where Article 15 is concerned. It falls in the first place to each Contracting State, with its responsibility for the life of *its+ nation, to determine whether that life is threatened by a public emergency and, if so, how far it is necessary to go in attempting to overcome the emergency. By reason of their direct and continuous contact with the pressing needs of the moment, the national authorities are in principle in a better position than the international judge to decide both on the presence of such an emergency and on the nature and scope of derogations necessary to avert it. In this matter, Article 15(1) leaves those authorities a wide margin of appreciation. Nevertheless, the States do not enjoy an unlimited power in this respect. The Court, which, with the Commission, is responsible for ensuring the observance of the States engagements (Art. 19), is empowered to rule on whether the States have gone beyond the extent strictly required by the exigencies of the crisis. The domestic margin of appreciation is thus accompanied by a European supervision. Torture is a strong word. In human rights instruments only deliberate inhuman treatment causing very serious and cruel suffering ranks as torture. Ill-treatment must attain a minimum level of severity if it is to fall within the scope of Article 3. The assessment of this minimum is relative; it depends on all the circumstances of the case, such as the duration of the treatment, its physical and mental effects and, in some cases, the sex, age and state of health of the victim.