Home secretary's policy to require sex offenders to undergo treatment courses prior to release - wait for acceptance on to course delaying prisoner's likely release date - home secretary subject solely to duty to act rationally in implementation and no breach of prisoner's convention rights

R (Cawser) v Secretary of State for the Home Department: CA (Lords Justice Simon Brown, Laws and Arden): 5 November 2003

The secretary of state adopted a policy of requiring sex offenders serving life sentences to undergo a treatment course before they could be released on licence.

The claimant was approved to attend such a course but had to wait 21 months before he was accepted on to a course which, since his tariff had expired in August 2001, inevitably delayed his likely release date.

He sought judicial review on the ground that the implementation of the policy had infringed his rights under article 5 of the European Convention on Human Rights.

The judge dismissed the claim.

He appealed.

Tim Owen QC and Kris Gledhill (instructed by Bhatt Murphy) for the claimant; Rabinder Singh QC and Sam Grodzinski (instructed by the Treasury Solicitor) for the secretary of state.

Held, dismissing the appeal, that when implementing a policy of making release for life sentence sex offenders dependent on their attendance on treatment courses, the secretary of state was subject solely to a public law duty to act rationally by making reasonable provision, subject to available resources, for such courses; and that detention in those cases would not become unlawful under article 5(1) even if no such provision were made.