In the case of Re Conway, the Northern Ireland Court of Appeal allowed a judicial review appeal and remitted the case to the High Court for consideration of whether the discretionary policy of full body-searching of prisoners was practiced in an inflexible manner.
Lord Justice Girvan noted that what was in question in the case was a practice of full body searching of all prisoners leaving the prison during their incarceration. He stated that "it will be necessary for the judge to consider the question whether there as in fact total inflexibility on the part of the Prison Service in the application of the policy. If that were established the policy would be unlawful and disproportionate since it would preclude the exercise of any discretion to disapply the policy in any circumstances even when the dictates of proportionality might require it not to be applied in given situations".
Meanwhile in London, the UK's Deputy Prime Minister has said that he cannot declare the Coalition Government’s House of Lords Reform Bill as compatible with the Human Rights Act, as prisoners will be banned from voting for Lords if the bill becomes law. Following the recent ruling in Scoppola (no.3) v. Italy at the European Court of Human Rights, a blanket ban on prisoners voting is incompatible with the UK’s obligations under the European Convention on Human Rights.
Click here to read an article in the UK Human Rights blog about the issue.
Ian O’Donnell, professor of criminology at University College Dublin has written an opinion piece in the Irish Times calling for a safer and more human prison system. A priority in his opinion is a comprehensive investigation into the death of Gary Douch, the man murdered in Mountjoy Prison in 2006. Following the death of Mr Douch and the report of a civil servant into the incident, a commission of investigation was established in May 2007. However the Commission’s final report has still not been published. Mr O’Donnell compares this with a similar investigation in the UK, which not only had the investigations report published but the recommendations of the investigation implemented within 28 months of the start of the process. Mr O’Donnell also berates the lack of implementation of prison report recommendations more generally. For example, he notes that despite a report by the Prisons Hygiene Policy Group in 1997 which recommended that 24-hour access to toilets by prisoners be available, 1 in 4 prisoners continues to slop out. Mr O’Donnell finally notes the rapidly rising prisoner numbers.