R v Secretary of State for the Home Department, ex parte T.; R v Secretary of State for the Home Department, ex parte H.; R v Secretary of State for the Home Department, ex parte Hickey
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judgment Date | 20 November 1996 |
| Date | 20 November 1996 |
| Court | Court of Appeal (Civil Division) |
Court of Appeal
Before Lord Justice Hirst, Lord Justice Peter Gibson and Lord Justice Pill
Judicial review - home leave for prisoners - legitimate expectation
The inmate compact which prisoners signed with Risley Prison and which before November 1994 offered them the opportunity to apply for home leave after serving one-third of their sentence, provided they behaved themselves, did not give rise to a legitimate expectation which could be enforced by way of judicial review.
The Secretary of State for the Home Department had not acted unreasonably in restricting home leave to prisoners who had served half their sentence, although it was unsatisfactory that the compact should not have plainly indicated that the home leave offer was subject to the regime currently in force at the time of the home leave application.
It was not for the court to determine the overall fairness of the Home Secretary's decision of substance. The proper test was whether the decision to change the policy was unreasonable in the WednesburyELR sense ([1948] 1 KB 223).
The Court of Appeal so held dismissing an appeal by Craig Hargreaves, Kevin Briggs and Brendan Green against the dismissal by the Queen's Bench Divisional Court (Lord Justice Kennedy and Mr Justice McCullough) on July 25, 1995 of their application for judicial review of a decision by the Home Secretary to implement a new scheme restricting the eligibility of prisoners to apply for home leave and of the order of the governor of Risley Prison applying the new scheme to them.
Mr Patrick Elias, QC and Mr Terence Gallivan for the appellants; Mr Michael Beloff, QC and Mr Steven Kovats for the Home Secretary.
LORD JUSTICE HIRST said the three appellants were category C prisoners at Risley who when they began their sentences would have been entitled to apply for home leave after serving a third of their time. Under the changed scheme, introduced by the Prison (Amendment) Rules (SI 1995 No 983), they were entitled to apply only after having served half their sentence.
Their case was that the new policy had deprived them of a legitimate expectation of being considered eligible for home leave after serving one-third of sentence. Each prisoner relied on the terms of a notice received from the prison authorities when he began his sentence and also on the terms of the compact he entered with the prison governor at the same time.
On admission, each appellant had been issued with a Notice to Prisoners which under "Home Leave" said: "You can apply for short-term home leave after serving one-third of the total term of sentenced imprisonment, and at six-monthly intervals after that."
At the same time each applicant was invited to sign and did sign a compact. Such compacts were the subject matter of a...
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