Absolute?

So I left class today feeling a little confused it seems to me that he has not proven that we have absolute rights. He talks about the right not to be tourtured but he believes that you must tourture your mother in the terrorist example, is this because we are not to be held responsible according to his second principle of intervention? To me this is just a moral justification which would fit in with the override idea but dosn't that point to the right not being absolute because there is no moral justification for violation of an absolute right? Absolute when it can not be overridden dosn't seem to fit this example of tourture to me. The only thing I can think of that is absolute was Prof. example of being able to think what you want to think. Maybe I missed something could someone help me out.