Irreducible Life Sentences, Craig Minogue and the Capacity of Human Rights Charters to Make a Difference I Introduction
484 UNSW Law Journal Volume 43(2) IRREDUCIBLE LIFE SENTENCES, CRAIG MINOGUE AND THE CAPACITY OF HUMAN RIGHTS CHARTERS TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE ANDREW DYER* Certain commentators have recently doubted whether, as a normative matter, an irreducible life sentence will always breach an offender’s human rights. This article argues that it will. Such commentators ignore the fact that certain punishments are ‘inhuman or degrading’ however proportionate they are, and however much suffering they cause. After noting that there is a clear trend against irreducible life sentences in Europe, the article then contends that a comparison of the relevant European jurisprudence with some recent decisions of the High Court of Australia demonstrates that charters of rights can improve protections for prisoners against laws that objectify and exclude them. The Victorian government’s recent disapplication of its charter for the purposes of legislation that removes the possibility of parole from certain named prisoners, however, also indicates that, if future Australian charters are properly to protect prisoners’ rights, they might have to be designed differently from existing Australian charters. I INTRODUCTION In Minogue v Victoria (‘Minogue (Scope Challenge)’),1 five High Court Justices suggested that, if the defendant were to impose an irreducible life sentence on a criminal offender, it would breach section 10(b) of the Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities Act 2006 (Vic) (‘Victorian Charter’), which prohibits, relevantly, ‘cruel, inhuman or degrading’ punishments. That provision, their Honours observed, is ‘in substantially the same terms’2 as article 3 of the Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (‘ECHR’).3 In Vinter v United Kingdom (‘Vinter’),4 they continued,5 the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights (‘ECtHR’) held to be contrary to that article a life sentence that gave prisoners the prospect of release * Colin Phegan Senior Lecturer, University of Sydney Law School.
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