Life Imprisonment Sentence and the Possibility to Review and Release: A Perspective from the European Court of Human Rights’ Judgements

Abstract

According to Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights, the offenders must not be ‘subjected to inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment’. It is obvious that all States have a duty to maintain its law and order, at the same time, the offender's rights must also be recognised and protected. This leads to one of the recent issues in Europe which is the imposition of life sentence. Since the European Court of Human Right ruled in many judgements that its aim of violence punishment is rehabilitation and return the prisoners back to the society. In addition to this, the Court found that the whole life imprisonment does not serve that aim. As a result, the Court has established that a review and release mechanism must be set up when the life sentence is imposed. To avoid the violation of Article 3, Member States are required to improve their review and release system. However, the Court was criticised because the following judgements are inconsistent. It caused the different standard between the Member States and the ambiguous on the Court’s function. It can be argued that the Court’s role increased the uncertainty of the human rights’ protection.