Leading Article: A challenge to the Bulger trial
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Your support makes all the difference.LAST November the nation was horrified by the trial of the 11-year-olds Robert Thompson and Jon Venables for the murder of James Bulger, aged two. So great was the shock that there was little examination of whether justice was well served by the trial itself; and little thought was given to the future of the perpetrators. That omission is now to be remedied. With American backing, lawyers are preparing to challenge at the European Court of Human Rights both the nature and outcome of the trial.
To many people this application may seem an insult to James Bulger's memory. Yet it is surely possible to distinguish between the horror of his fate and the question of whether those who killed him have been justly treated. No one is suggesting that Thompson and Venables did not deserve to be detained for a long time. The claim is that they did not receive a fair trial - and that it should not be for the Home Secretary to decide how long they be kept 'at Her Majesty's pleasure'.
The challenge seems to be on strong ground in claiming that the two young defendants should not have been tried as if they were adults. Britain is exceptional in having an age as low as 10 at which children can be prosecuted: the norm on the Continent is 13 or 14. It is doubtful whether Thompson and Venables were aware of their rights when being questioned by the police; and that they could properly understand what was going on around them at the trial. However dreadful the deed, to submit children to so public a trial was arguably unjust.
The case being prepared for Strasbourg will also challenge the indefinite nature of the sentence, and the right of the Home Secretary to decide when the two should be released. The judge involved, Mr Justice Morland, and the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Taylor, have respectively recommended a 'tariff' of eight and 10 years, to meet the 'requirements of retribution and deterrence'. The Home Secretary has the final say, enabling him to take into account issues not just of public safety but also - a recent addition - of acceptability to the public.
No one can doubt that sentencing policy and public opinion cannot afford to diverge too widely. Yet it seems wrong that a Home Secretary should be able to boost his own or his party's popularity by pandering to the vengeful streak visible in crowds outside very emotive murder trials.
The application to Strasbourg will claim that the Home Secretary's prerogative violates the human rights convention by handing to the executive a plainly judicial function. Since this puts the fate of everyone given a mandatory life sentence for murder in the Home Secretary's hands, the European court's decision on this sensitive issue will be awaited with great interest. For that reason above all, the impending challenge is welcome.
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