ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on two controversial policy areas, and largely on the relationship between the domestic courts and the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), the relationship with ‘Europe’ remains as tense as ever. There are probably 70 prisoners serving a whole life sentence at the moment in England and Wales, and no whole life prisoner has ever been granted compassionate release. The Human Rights Act 1998 directly incorporated the European Convention on Human Rights into domestic law. The ‘whole life’ sentence has been much contested in both European and domestic courts’ case law, which illustrates many of the tensions that exist in interpreting the ‘rule of law’, both in the common law and the ECtHR. The Voting Eligibility Bill was drafted to give Members of Parliament three options on which to vote: retain the ban for prisoners jailed for over four years; retain the ban for prisoners jailed for over six months; retain the current ban.
