Lawfulness of Whole-Life Tariff
| Author | J.A. Coutts |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/002201839906300532 |
| Published date | 01 October 1999 |
| Date | 01 October 1999 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
The Journal of
Criminal
Law
in respect of the remaining convictions, further leave to appeal was
refused.
Lawfulness of Whole-Life Tariff
Rv
Home
Secretary,
ex p
Hindley
[1999] 2 WLR 1253
On conviction of
murder
of children,
the
applicant was sentenced to life
imprisonment
and
the trial judge expressed to
the
Home Secretary his
expectation that she would be kept in prison 'for a very long time'. The
Lord Chief Justice informed the Home Secretary
that
in his opinion a
term of no less
than
25 years would be appropriate. The Home Secretary.
stated to Parliament his policy that a tariff of no less
than
20 years would
be appropriate to meet the requirements of retribution
and
deterrence
in the case of the sexual or sadistic killing of children, although alonger
period might be necessary in exceptional circumstances. In the case of
the present applicant, he stated that he
had
reached aprovisional view
that the appropriate term would be 30 years.
When
her
case was
referred to the Parole Board, it declined to recommend
her
release. The
applicant having confessed to being involved in further murders,
the
Home Secretary decided that only a whole-life tariff was appropriate in
her
case. In further policy statements, the Home Secretary informed
Parliament that prisoners would be informed of changes in policy
and
that after 25 years
any
prisoner
under
awhole-life tariff would have his
case ministerially reviewed. The prisoner was informed in general terms
of changes in policy,
but
she was also informed that in
her
case
the
whole-life tariff remained in place.
The applicant sought judicial review of
the
decision to maintain
her
whole-life tariff, on the ground that awhole-life tariff is unlawful. The
Divisional Court held that such a tariff is lawful,
but
that the policy of
review
onlyof
the question
whether
the requirements of retribution
and
deterrence had been satisfied was an unlawful restriction on the
exercise of the discretion of the Home Secretary. The later policy, which
allowed for a consideration of exceptional circumstances to be con-
sidered as a ground for modifying a policy or a tariff was, however,
declared by the court to be lawful (for it would, for example, allow a
consideration of the prisoner's 'progress' in prison to be taken into
account). For those reasons, the Divisional Court dismissed
the
applica-
tion for judicial review. The issue before the Court of Appeal was
whether
these arguments were to be accepted.
HELD,
DISMISSING
THE
A~PEAL:
1. The imposition of a whole-life tariff on a mandatory life prisoner is
lawful (although the court was divided as to the reasons for that
conclusion); .
2. There
had
been no abuse of process or unfairness in the change
made to the appellant's tariff
(to
increase it to a whole-life tariff). She
had
not
been informed of the earlier tariff
and
had therefore no reason-
able expectations based on it; and, also, there
had
been achange in the
454
To continue reading
Request your trial