THE European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg yesterday condemned Britain's system for jailing minors in a ruling that could affect the sentences of two boys who battered a toddler to death in 1993.
The ruling unanimously found that prisoners' right to have sentences reviewed by the courts was being violated by the power of the British Home Secretary to have the final say over how long young offenders should be locked up "at Her Majesty's pleasure".
Ruling on appeals by two men, Prem Singh and Abed Hussain, who committed murders as teenagers in the 1970s, the court found "they were unable to have the lawfulness of their continued detention or re detention reviewed by a court."
The ruling has implications for hundreds of cases, including that of the two 11 year old boys who beat two year old James Bulger to death in Liverpool in 1993. The boys, Robert Thompson and Jon Venables, were jailed for at least 15 years under a ruling by the Home Secretary - longer than the trial judge had recommended.
Those fighting to reduce the jail terms handed out to Thompson and Venables for killing James Bulger will be disappointed that the ruling does not affect the Home Secretary's powers over the punitive sentence - in the Bulger case Mr Howard almost doubled the trial judge's recommended minimum.
But, if the law is now changed in the wake of the judgment, it does mean that the boys can expect an independent review of their sentences rather than having to rely on the Home Secretary's judgment when they have served the punitive parts of the sentences.
James Bulger's mother, Denise, yesterday denounced the ruling. "I don't think it is right that the European courts should interfere in British justice. They should mind their own business," she said.
A spokeswoman for the British Home Office said the government was disappointed by the ruling.
"The government is committed to ensuring that those convicted of the uniquely heinous crime of murder are punished appropriately," she said.
The European Court censured Britain last year over the killings of the IRA members shot in Gibraltar in 1988.