Assertion that Parole Board lacked necessary independence to determine whether the claimant prisoner should be eligible for release after completion of indeterminate sentence of imprisonment.
Held: The court particularly considered the issue of tenure, where a member of the Board might be removed for failures of different kinds, but without the possibility of review, in the light of pressure applied politically for the removal of the Chair of the Parole Board. The court granted permission for the judicial review to go ahead with a declaration sought: ‘That the period of appointment (three or four years, renewable for three or four years) of Parole Board members coupled with the power of the Secretary of State to remove a member if he is satisfied that he or she has failed without reasonable excuse to discharge the functions of his or her office for a continuous period of at least three months, or is unable to discharge the functions of the office, without recourse to any procedure or machinery to determine the merit of a decision to remove him or her on one or other of these grounds, means that the provisions for tenure of Parole Board membership fail the test of objective independence.’
Judges:
Mostyn J
Citations:
[2018] EWHC 2089 (Admin)
Links:
Statutes:
European Convention on Human Rights
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Prisons, Human Rights, Legal Professions
Updated: 26 April 2022; Ref: scu.621165