Prisoners Rights in UK Law

First, the doctrine of proportionality may require the reviewing court to assess the balance which the decision maker has struck, not merely whether it is within the range of rational or reasonable decisions. Secondly, the proportionality test may go further than the traditional grounds of review inasmuch as it may require attention to be directed to the relative weight accorded to interests and considerations.

I respectfully agree with Lord Brown that, if such a surprising result were intended, it ought to have been enacted in the clearest of terms. In my opinion this conclusion is greatly strengthened by the method of legislating that was employed in this case.

Whatever be the explanation, however, the omission cannot begin to bear the weight the Secretary of State seeks to put upon it. Thirdly, the longer one considers the scheme of this part of Schedule 2, the plainer it becomes that paragraph 23 is concerned only with the process of recalling and re-releasing prisoners on licence and not in any way with the duration of their licences and the point at which they become entitled to unconditional release.

Fundamental rights cannot be overridden by general or ambiguous words. This is because there is too great a risk that the full implications of their unqualified meaning may have passed unnoticed in the democratic process. In the absence of express language or necessary implication to the contrary, the courts therefore presume that even the most general words were intended to be subject to the basic rights of the individual.

The principle is now as well established as any principle can be in the developing field of public law that where any person or body exercises a power conferred by statute which affects the rights or legitimate expectations of citizens and is of a kind which the law requires to be exercised in accordance with the rules of natural justice, the court has jurisdiction to review the exercise of that power.

But the investigation of cases of negligence resulting in the death of prisoners may often be more complex and may require more elaborate investigation. The European Court of Human Rights has interpreted article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights as imposing minimum standards which must be met in all cases. Given the crucial public importance of investigating all deaths in custody properly, I consider that full effect must be given to the Strasbourg jurisprudence.

The courts are in general the ultimate custodians of the rights and liberties of the subject whatever his status and however attenuated those rights and liberties may be as the result of some punitive or other process. An essential characteristic of the right of a subject is that it carries with it a right of recourse to the courts unless some statute decrees otherwise What should be the nature and measure of the, relief accorded must be a matter for the courts.