Parole Board oral hearings challenge succeeds

In an interesting ruling, the Supreme Court has ruled that the Parole Board breached three prisoners’ human rights by failing to offer them oral hearings.

The appeal concerned the circumstances in which the Parole Board is obliged to hold an oral hearing.

The first appellant, Osborn, had been sentenced to six years imprisonment in 2006 and although released after three years, was recalled to prison for breaching his licence conditions on the day of his release. The other two appellants, Booth and Reilly, both received life sentences for various offences with a minimum tariff recommendation which had, in the case of Booth, expired in or around 1988 and in the case of Reilly, in September 2009. Both continue to be in prison.

Each case had been considered on paper by the board’s single-member panel which decided not to release the prisoners or recommend their transfer to open prison conditions. Requests for oral hearings were refused. 

All three raised a judicial review of the decisions not to offer oral hearings, with only Reilly being successful in the High Court. That decision, however, was later overturned by the Northern Ireland Court of Appeal.

The Supreme Court was unanimous in allowing the appeals on the basis that the board had breached its common law duty of procedural fairness and article 5(4) of the European Convention on Human Rights. This says:

“Everyone who is deprived of his liberty by arrest or detention shall be entitled to take proceedings by which the lawfulness of his detention shall be decided speedily by a court and his release ordered if the detention is not lawful”.

It was held that an oral hearing should be held whenever it is required in order to ensure fairness to the prisoner, in light of the facts of the case and the importance of what is at stake.

An oral hearing is likely to be required in the following circumstances, said the Court:

  • Where important facts are disputed or where an important explanation or mitigation is to be put forward which requires to be heard to determine credibility;
  • Where the board is not, without a hearing, able to act fairly in making an assessment of risk or how it should be dealt with;
  • Where it is reasonably arguable that a face to face meeting, or questioning of those who have dealt with the prisoner, is necessary to enable his case to be put effectively or to test the opinions of those who have dealt with him; and
  • Where, having considered the prisoner’s representations, it would not be fair for a decision to be taken solely on the basis of written representation.

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