Parole hearings 'deny prisoners' human rights'

Parole hearings 'deny prisoners' human rights'

By Joshua Rozenberg, Legal Editor, and John Steele
Last Updated: 1:11am BST 08/09/2007

The troubled parole system suffered another blow yesterday when the High Court ruled that hearings in which prisoners are assessed for release are not sufficiently independent of Government.

Thousands of prisoners seeking freedom are being denied their human right to a hearing before an independent body, according to the ruling. The Government described it as "disappointing".

The case involved prisoners including an Armenian involved in a notorious political murder. Two judges concluded that the "present arrangements for the Parole Board do not sufficiently demonstrate its objective independence".

The Ministry of Justice claimed last night that the ruling - the effects of which were suspended pending a Government appeal - would not result in prisoners being released or decisions declared unfair.

Jack Straw, the Justice Secretary, was granted permission to challenge the decision. If he loses he will be forced to revamp the system, putting the Parole Board on an independent footing, according to John Dickinson, solicitor for two of the prisoners.

Mr Dickinson said: "This issue of the Parole Board not being sufficiently independent of the Government was emphasised by its description in a Home Office review as being 'an instrument of Government policy'."

The Ministry of Justice took over prisons from the Home Office in the summer.

The ministry was ordered to pay the prisoners' legal costs.

Earlier this year it emerged that the prison service could be forced to pay inmates tens of thousands of pounds in compensation for keeping them in jail after they were due for early release on parole.

The Court of Appeal held that prisoners' human rights were breached if they were kept in jail beyond the date on which they become eligible for parole.

In a separate ruling last month, it became clear that thousands of prisoners serving short-term sentences with no defined release date might have to be set free.

A High Court ruling over the Government's indeterminate sentences for public protection centred on the regulation that offenders must prove they are safe to be released before they are considered for parole and can only prove this by completing a treatment programme.

However, there is a "lamentable" lack of courses.

Two senior judges decided that a sex offender could not be held in Doncaster prison after his 18-month minimum "tariff'' expired because the jail had insufficient training facilities.

One of the prisoners who brought the latest challenge was Gagik Ter-Ogannisyan, an Armenian serving life imprisonment for complicity in the murder of two Russians in 1993. His 15-year tariff expires next year.

Another man convicted with him hanged himself in prison and, in a still unsolved murder, Ter-Ogannisyan's sister-in-law was shot dead on her doorstep in Surrey.

Police believe she was mistakenly killed by an assassin who believed she was Ter-Ogannisyan's wife, then a producer with the BBC.

The Parole Board was set up in 1967 to advise the Home Secretary on the early release of prisoners serving fixed terms.

A Government minister, formerly the Home Secretary and now the Justice Secretary, is a party to every decision. But his department "sponsors" the Parole Board, appointing its members to relatively short periods of three years and removing them if they fail to perform their duties satisfactorily.

The High Court said the "period of appointment in this case is near the low borderline of what is capable of providing the necessary guarantee of independence".

But when coupled with the power to remove members, the procedures failed the test of independence.

Joshua Rozenberg's analysis: Parole ruling an 'embarrassment' for Straw

Parole Board is too close to government says High Court