Following Vinter v United Kingdom [2014], whole life orders without a sufficiently clear review mechanism at the outset of sentencing were incompatible with Article 3 of the European Convention of Human Rights. The Hutchinson v United Kingdom [2017] judgment raised academic trepidation that this requirement had been removed. This article focuses on how Hutchinson relates to the specific requirements for whole life orders, in Vinter, and whether legal consistency is present between the two judgments. It will do so by highlighting how the substantive issue of whether a review mechanism exists is distinct from the procedural issue of whether this review mechanism is clear and certain. In the latter, a margin of appreciation is necessary to find the appropriate balance between the procedural autonomy of Member States, and the secondary role of the european Court of Human Rights as a supervisor to the domestic authorities and courts. This article will also address the factual question of whether the Grand Chamber in Hutchinson had omitted the issue of whether the applicant was aware at the outset of his sentencing of a review mechanism, even if this still falls short of causing a counter-revolution of legal principles.
2. A. 57592/08 (ECtHR, 17 January 2017).
3. [2014] Crim LR 81 (Grand Chamber).
4. A. 57592/08 (ECtHR, 3 February 2015).
5. Dzehtsiarou first uses the term of a ‘counter-revolution’ to describe the decision in Hutchinson, in relation to Vinter, in ‘Hutchinson v UK: The right to hope (revisited)’ <http://echrblog.blogspot.co.uk/2015/02/hutchinson-v-ukright-to-hope-revisited.html> accessed 12 January 2017.
6. Attorney-General’s Reference (No 69 of 2013); R v McLoughlin and Newell [2014] HRLR 7.
7. Supra n 3.
8. (2002) 35 EHRR 32.
9. Vinter and Others v United Kingdom (2012) 55 EHRR 34 at paras 94 – 95.
10. Supra n 3.
11. Ibid.
12. Szydlo, ‘Free Life after Life Imprisonment as a Human Right under the European Convention’ (2013) 9 European Constitutional Law Review 501.
13. ECHR Reports 2008; 49 EHRR 35
14. [2008] EWCA Crim 1601; [2009] 1 WLR 223.
15. [2012] EWCA Crim 2435; [2013] QB 979 at para 29.
16. van Zyl Smit, Weatherby and Creighton, ‘Whole Life Sentences and the Tide of European Human Rights Jurisprudence: What Is to Be Done?’ HRLR 2014, 14, 61.
17. Supra n 14.
18. Supra n 3.
19. This decision was meant to demonstrate that the Strasbourg Court has misunderstood English law. See further Ashworth ‘R v Newell (Lee Williams): Sentencing – Life imprisonment – Whole Life Orders’ (2014) 6 CLR 6, 471 – 474.
20. Supra n 6.
21. R v Horncastle [2009] UKSC 14.
22. Al-Khawaja and Tahery v UK (Grand Chamber) (15 December 2011).
23. Supra n 4.
24. Supra n 2.
25. Ryngaert, ‘Does the European Court of Human Rights read the UCall blog? Court makes U-turn in life imprisonment cases’ <http://blog.ucall.nl/index.php/2015/02/does-the-european-court-of-human-rights-read-the-ucall-blog-court-makes-u-turn-in-life-imprisonment-cases/> accessed 17 February 2017.
26. Foster, ‘Whole Life Sentences and Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights: Time for Certainty and a Common Approach?’ (2015) Liverpool Law Rev 36.
27. Mahoney, ‘Strasbourg and National Courts: The Strasbourg View’ in Ziegler, Wicks and Hodson (eds), The UK and European Human Rights: A Strained Relationship? (OUP 2015).
28. Szydlo (n 12) at 511.
29. Case 33/76 Rewe-Zentralfinanz GmbH v Landwirtschaftskammer für das Saarland [1976] ECR 1989 (Rewe I), at para 5.
30. The ECJ first used this term in C-201/02 Delena Wells, ECR [2004] I-723, although the Advocates General have used the term regularly since 1994.
31. Prechal, ‘Community Law in National Court: the Lessons from Van Schijndel’ (1998) 35 Common Market Law Review, 690 – 691.
32. A. 10511/10 (26 April 2016).
33. [2012] USC 19, at para 217.
34. Case C-591/10, Opinion 12/1/12, at paras 24 – 25.
35. Supra n 2.
36. This article treats the moral question of whether the UK’s review mechanism should be clearer and more certain as independent from the legal question of whether the mechanism is sufficiently clear. In the present context, the article is concerned with the latter.
37. Insofar as a Diceyan notion of the rule of law holds that the judiciary should be able to check executive power from being used arbitrarily, the fact that this power is being withheld from the ECtHR against Member States can be seen as frustrating the rule of law. For more on the rule of law, see A. V. Dicey, An Introduction to the Study of the Law of the Constitution (Macmillan 1920).
38. Foster (n 26).
39. Mahoney (n 26).
40. Foster (n 26).
41. Supra (n 2).
42. Ibid, at para 15.
43. Ibid, at para 31.
44. Ibid, at para 18.
45. van Zyl Smit et al (n 16), at 72.
46. Foster (n 26).
47. Supra n 2 at para 44.
48. Fenwick, ‘Enhanced Subsidiarity of Appeasement?’ in Ziegler, Wicks and Hodson (eds), The UK and European Human Rights: A Strained Relationship? (OUP 2015).
49. Simonsen, ‘Too Soon for the Right to Hope? Whole Life Sentences and the Strasbourg Court’s Decision in Hutchinson v UK’ <http://www.ejiltalk.org/too-soon-for-the-right-to-hope-whole-life-sentences-and-the-strasbourg-courts-decision-in-hutchinson-v-uk/> accessed 17 February 2017.
50. Handyside v UK (1976) 1 EHRR 737.
51. Lord Hoffmann, ‘The Universality of Human Rights’ (2009) 125 LQR 416.
52. High Level Conference on the Future of the European Court of Human Rights, Brighton Declaration of 19 April 2012, available at www.echr.coe.int, Point 12.
53. JP Costa, On the Legitimacy of the European Court of Human Rights’ Judgments (2011) 7 EuConst 173.
54. McGoldrick, ‘A defence of the margin of appreciation and an argument for its application by the Human Rights Committee’ (2016) ICLQ 21.
55. Worth noting would be Pinto de Albuquerque’s dissent, who states that the margin of appreciation here results in ‘downgrading the role of the Court before certain domestic jurisdictions’, such that it ends up as a ‘non-judicial commission of highly qualified and politically legitimised experts, which does not deliver binding judgments’ at para 38, of the Grand Chamber’s decision, supra (n 2).
56. A nuanced approach to subsidiarity underscored by mutually respectful dialogue. See further O’Meara, ‘Reforming the ECtHR’ in Ziegler, Wicks and Hodson (eds), The UK and European Human Rights: A Strained Relationship? (OUP 2015).
57. O Bowcott, ‘Senior Judge Warns over Deportation of Terror Suspects to Torture States’ The Guardian (London, 5 March 2013), www.theguardian.com/law/2013/mar/05/lord-neuberger-deportation-terror-suspects.
58. Hale, ‘Argentoratum Locutum: Is Strasbourg or the Supreme Court Supreme?’ (2012) 12 (1) Human Rights Law Review 65.
59. Mahoney (n 27) 23.
60. Ibid.
61. A. 24069/03 (18 March 2014).
62. A. 73593/10 (20 May 2014).
63. Worth noting would also be the application of Vinter in Zimbabwe, in Obediah Makoni v Commissioner of Prisons & ANOR (2016) CCZ 08-16 (Constitutional Court of Zimbabwe), and the application in the context of extradition in Trabelsi v Belgium (2014) A. 140/10.
64. Dzehtsiarou ‘Guest Post on Grand Chamber Judgment in Hutchinson’ <http://echrblog.blogspot.co.uk/2017/01/guest-post-on-grand-chamber-judgmentin.html> Accessed 1 February 2017.
65. Supra n 3 at para 113.
66. Supra n 3 at para 122.
67. Supra n 2.
68. House of Lords, House of Commons Joint Committee on Human Rights Legislative Scrutiny (1) Criminal Justice and Courts Bill; (2) Deregulation Bill, fourteenth report of session 2013 – 2014, at para 1.26.
1 St. Anne’s College, University of Oxford. I am grateful to Mr Nicholas Bamforth for his comments on an earlier draft of this essay. All errors remain my own.
(2017). Whole Life Orders in Hutchinson v UK: A Counter-Revolution, or Evolution to Vinter?. Legal issues Journal, 5 (2), https://www.legalissuesjournal.com/article/05-02-12072017/
