ABSTRACT
This book has traced the origins and developments of Discretionary Lifer Panels of the Parole Board from their roots in the key decisions of the European Court of Human Rights which caused Parliament to legislate for a more ‘court-like’ body to decide the question of the release of post-tariff life sentence prisoners. We then looked at the way Parliament created ‘Discretionary Lifer Panels’ of the Parole Board. The government was prepared to legislate for the minimum procedural safeguards required by the Court but without examining in detail whether the Parole Board was independent or, perhaps more importantly, without laying down the substantive criteria for release. Chapter 5 described the way DLPs work in practice, and Chapter 6 offered a description of other comparable release procedures in England and Wales. Chapter 7 returned to explore the ambiguities in the decisions of the European Court, raising also the ambiguities in recent decisions of the domestic courts in applications for judicial review. The main question for this final chapter is whether DLPs have achieved their purpose. That depends on what we understand their purpose to be.
