I'm in profound disagreement with the EUCHR on this and I don't care that the UK or someone from the UK drafted the original documents (that's to PeteEU). The whole point of a whole-life sentence is that someone has committed crimes so heinous that a judge and jury has agreed that the person will always be a threat to society or that the punishment for the crime is to as severe as possible.
Some points here.
The UK wrote the freaking treaty and has violated it... deal with it. Leave the treaty by all means, but then you are in the same boat as Belerus and other human rights violators.. Not the treaties fault that the UK politicians are a bunch of vindictive megalomaniacs that say one thing but does another and act like spoilt brats when they dont get their way.
Secondly this case was pretty clear the UK was in the wrong because it broke your own freaking law, which your own house of lords, court of appeals and your highest court have stated. The guidelines for for these sentences and your own legal systems rulings from your own High Court are very clear.. you can not sentence someone to life with no chance of any consideration of parole or release. The sentences have to be "minimum" and then after the minimum sentence has been carried out, then the inmate can take his case to the political masters and/or justice system.
Take the case of David Bieber, sentenced to life and the judge said he should never be released. That was appealed to your own High Court and they threw out the sentence and sentenced him to a minimum of 37 years before he could be considered for parole. Why no bitching about that case? Oh yea that was UK court, so that is alright..
Thirdly, no one is saying these men are going to be released. What they are saying that at some point they should be examined if they could be released. That does not mean they will be released. The whole point is that they can appeal for release for various reasons according to the guidelines and this was denied to them and that is a breach of human rights.
And the article seems to forget history.. typical media. The first two men were sentenced to life terms, not by a judge, but by the Home Secretary of the time. You see before 2000 (where 2 of the men were convicted) it was the politicians holding the Home Secretary post that set how long a person that got life should remain in prison. This practice had gone on for a long time, and was finally declared illegal for under 18s by the ECHR because of the James Bulgar case.
In 2002 a similar case was successful but for over 18s, so in 2003 you got a new sentencing system in the UK, where the judges set the length. Now like any good idiotic politician the law was flawed because it gave the the Judges full discretion on length but did not define the procedure clearly enough. They did add guidelines for life sentences.. but they are only guidelines right... and that is why we are in part here today.
Of the 3 men, two were sentenced before the new law, and sentenced by a politician...that alone should scream WTF for any person wanting to live in a law and order society and the 3rd man was sentenced after, but just before (we are talking about 4 months..) the UK Supreme Court ruled on a case in which the "die in jail" sentence was declared illegal.
And finally lets be very very clear here. These men in question will never see daylight again, since they will have minimum sentences to serve and then they will have to appeal for parole and that will most likely be denied.
Ironically it is no different than what Brevik in Norway is under, or most lifers in Scandinavia.
First, votes for prisoners,
Who cares. Only place that this would remotely matter would be in the US where there are such massive numbers behind bars or have been behind bars. Never understood why, just because you are convicted of a crime, that you suddenly loose your basic rights as citizens.. but /shrug.
then Abu Qatada (who we finally got rid off after some £8million in costs)
Your own ****ing fault and you know it. Not only did you let him into the country... bad move, but this was a UK government (both labour and tory) cluster**** from start to finish. It has been a binding principle of UK policy since WW2 not to extradite people to countries where they are threatened by death or torture, but suddenly you want to throw all that away because you dislike this idiots Islamic bull****? Come on.. the UK is better than that. And in the end, you got what you wanted, and Jordan on the face of it, joined the civilized world where we dont torture people for confessions. So what if it cost you 8 million.. that is what you waste on chavs and London bankers every second or so.