LONDON: A British court ruled yesterday that domestic laws on whole-life prison sentences were compatible with European human rights laws, disagreeing with a European court in a judgment that fed into a fierce debate on Britain’s ties with Europe.
The ruling by five of the most senior Court of Appeal judges also opened the way for two British Muslim converts who hacked a soldier to death in broad daylight on a London street in May 2013 to be sentenced to whole-life terms.
The judge in charge of that case had delayed sentencing Michael Adebolajo and Michael Adebowale, who were convicted on December 19 of Lee Rigby’s murder, because he wanted to wait for the Court of Appeal to clarify the position on whole-life sentences.
The European Court of Human Rights had ruled last July that British courts had violated three murderers’ rights by jailing them for life with no prospect of release—a judgment that played into an anti-European mood in Britain.
But in yesterday’s ruling, the British court instructed judges to keep imposing whole-life sentences when appropriate.
“In our judgment, the law of England and Wales ... does provide to an offender ‘hope’ or the ‘possibility’ of release in exceptional circumstances,” the court said.
The European court’s decision in July particularly angered the ruling Conservatives, who adopt a tough line on crime and see the court based in the eastern French city of Strasbourg as a threat to British sovereignty.
“The UK courts have definitively rejected the ludicrous ruling from Strasbourg demanding the most dangerous criminals are given the chance to be freed,” said Dominic Raab, a Conservative legislator, in a statement after yesterday’s ruling.
“It is a victory for common sense and democracy and shows the government is right to fight the human rights mission creep tooth and nail,” said Raab, who is one of the most vocal critics of the Strasbourg court.
Reuters
