25/02/2016

High Court gives judgment on adequacy of Parole Board resourcing

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On 24 February the Administrative Court (Hickinbottom J) gave judgment in R (Hussain) v Parole Board [2016] EWHC 288 (Admin). Mr Hussain was one of a number of prisoners who experienced delay in the listing of their parole hearing following the increase in demand for oral hearings in the wake of the decision of the Supreme Court in R (Osborn) v Parole Board [2014] AC 1115. This was the first case to consider the question of systemic delay for pre-tariff life sentence prisoners. The Court concluded that the (undisputed) delay in the listing of the claimant’s case was a breach of the Board’s public law and Article 5 obligations; but recognised the work done by the Board to deal with the backlog and declined to grant mandatory relief.

Ben Collins QC (leading David Bedenham of 11KBW and instructed by the Government Legal Department) appeared for the Board.

hussain, parole board, supreme court, osborn, article 5, government legal department