ECHR: whole life sentences must have reviews

Prisoners handed whole life tariffs must have the right to review, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has ruled.

Jeremy Bamber, Peter Moore and Douglas Vinter, three of the 49 criminals handed whole life sentences in England and Wales, appealed to the ECHR, arguing the imposition of non-negotiable terms was “inhuman and degrading”.

The ECHR agreed that denying prisoners a review was a breach of Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights, and ruled that “for a life sentence to remain compatible with Article 3, there had to be both a possibility of release and a possibility of review.”

The ECHR stressed that the judgment “did not intend to give the applicants any prospect of imminent release”.

The powers of the UK Justice Secretary to allow the release of prisoners was “unclear”, the ECHR said, with the removal of the automatic review of whole life orders after 25 years in the Criminal Justice Act 2003 not replaced by “an alternative mechanism” meaning the prisoners’ rights were violated.

The ECHR said: “Given this lack of clarity and the absence of a dedicated review mechanism for whole life orders, the Court was not persuaded that, at the present time, the applicants’ life sentences were compatible with Article 3.”