27/01/2012
Last week Europe’s highest human rights court found that the UK’s ‘whole life’ tariff did not constitute inhuman or degrading punishment contrary to article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights (by a narrow 4-3 majority). In an article for online magazine The Justice Gap , GCN's Lucy Mair , a current pupil, provides a closer reading of the judgment and looks at the prospects of an appeal to the Grand Chamber.
In the article, Lucy Mair looks at how life without parole (LWOP) sentences are considered to be "death by incarceration". She notes that whilst the Court avoided issuing "a statement of principled finding against the UK by posing themselves the narrow question of when in the course of a life sentence an Article 3 issue might arise"..."The minority [more than 40%, who issued a separate judgment] held that the Article 3 problem 'does not consist merely in keeping the prisoner in detention longer than would be justified...it consists, equally importantly, of depriving him of any hope for the future, however tenuous that hope may be'."
Link to the full article is below:
http://thejusticegap.com/2012/01/death-by-incarceration/
About Lucy Mair:
Lucy Mair is currently a pupil at Garden Court North Chambers. Lucy has worked in the field of human rights for over a decade, most recently at Human Rights Watch, during which time she opened and managed the first Jerusalem field office and researched and authored several full length human rights reports. She has also worked as a freelance consultant for several international aid agencies and holds a masters degree in Human Rights from Columbia University.
> 17/1/12 ECHR whole-life tariffs judgment (Vinter and Others v UK)