ENGLAND A-BED :

Jails to release hundreds of worst inmates (Richard Ford, July 27, 2002, Times of London)

NINE hundred of the worst troublemakers in prisons in England and Wales are to be set free after a European Court of Human Rights ruling.

Jail officials ordered emergency action amid fears that the Home Office faces multimillion-pound compensation claims from inmates held beyond their release date after their sentences were increased for bad behaviour inside. [...]

A Prison Service spokeswoman said: ³The European Court of Human Rights . . . found unanimously that a punishment of additional days breached Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights (the right to a fair trial) because cases are heard by a prison governor without legal representation.

The court ruling destroyed a key part of the procedures under which governors acting as judge and jury in the 138 jails in England and Wales punish prisoners for breaches of discipline.

Presumably even the deracinated Brits will eventually get tired of this kind of loss of sovereignty. After all, what was the point of the last thoiusand years of British history if their just going to be run by French and German bureaucrats anyway?
Posted by Orrin Judd at July 27, 2002 7:03 AM