166. Accordingly, the Court has held that the annulment of procedural documents resulting from torture or cruel treatment is an effective measure to halt the consequences of a violation of judicial guarantees. 260 The Court also considers it necessary to emphasize that the rule of exclusion does not only apply to cases where acts of torture or cruel treatment have been committed. In this regard, Article 8(3) of the Convention is clear in indicating that “[t]he defendant’s confession is only valid if made without duress of any kind,” that is, it is not limited to the factual situation of torture or cruel treatment, but extends to any form of duress. Indeed, whenever it is proven that any form of duress has interfered with the spontaneous expression of a person’s will, this necessarily implies the obligation to exclude that evidence from the judicial proceeding. The annulment of such evidence is a necessary means to discourage the application of any form of coercion. 167. Furthermore, this Court considers that statements obtained under duress are seldom truthful, because the person tries to say whatever is necessary to make the cruel treatment or torture stop. Accordingly, the Court considers that accepting or granting evidentiary value to statements or confessions obtained by coercion, which affect the person or a third party, constitutes, in turn, an infringement of a fair trial. 261 Similarly, the absolute nature of the exclusionary rule is reflected in the prohibition on granting probative value not only to evidence obtained directly by coercion, but also to evidence derived from such action. Consequently, the Court considers that excluding evidence gathered or derived from information obtained by coercion adequately guarantees the exclusionary rule. 168. Some of these elements of international law are reflected in Mexican law. Article 20 of the Constitution, in force at the time of the events of this case, stated that “[a]ny form of solitary confinement, intimidation or torture is prohibited and shall be punished by criminal law. A confession rendered before any authority other than the Public Prosecutor’s Office or the judge, or before such authorities without the assistance of a legal counsel, shall have no evidentiary value.” 262 169. Notwithstanding the foregoing, this Court notes that following its visit to Mexico in 2001, the Committee against Torture indicated that "[d]espite the binding rules in the [Mexican] Constitution and laws on the inadmissibility as evidence of statements obtained under duress, in practice it is extraordinarily difficult for an accused to have a confession forcibly obtained from him excluded from the body of evidence. In practice, when an accused retracts the confession on which the Public Prosecutor’s Office has based the decision to commit him for trial, 259 Moreover, the Committee against Torture has indicated that the “broad scope of the prohibition in Article 15, proscribing the invocation of any statement which is established to have been made as a result of torture as evidence "in any proceedings", is a function of the absolute nature of the prohibition of torture and implies, consequently, an obligation for each State party to ascertain whether or not statements admitted as evidence in any proceedings for which it has jurisdiction, including extradition proceedings, have been made as a result of torture.” United Nations. Committee against Torture. G.K. v. Switzerland, May 7, 2003 (CAT/C/30/D/219/2002), para. 6.10. 260 Cf. Case of Bayarri v. Argentina, supra note 123, para. 108. 261 Cf. ECHR, Case of John Murray v. UK, Judgment of January 25, 1996, App. N°. 41/1994/488/570, paras. 45-46 and Case of Jalloh v. Germany, Judgment of July 11, 2006, App. N°. 54810/00, paras. 121-123. Cf. Similarly, the European Court has established that “the use of statements obtained as a result of acts of torture or mistreatments as evidence to assert the facts in a criminal proceeding makes said proceeding completely unfair and this conclusion is independent from the proving value assigned to said statements, or if its use was decisive for the sentence.” ECHR, Case of Gafgen v. Germany, Judgment of June 1, 2010, App. N°. 22978/05, para. 165 and Case Harutyunyan v Armenia, Judgment of June 28, 2007, App. N°. 36549/03, para. 63. 262 Cf. Article 16 of the Political Constitution of the United Mexican States, supra note 124. 66