Judgment No CCZ 8/16 8 Const. Application No CCZ 48/15 The European Court of Human Rights has dealt with several cases involving the compatibility of whole life sentences with specific provisions of the European Convention on Human Rights. Of particular concern is Article 3 of the Convention which prohibits torture and inhuman and degrading treatment. In Dickson v The United Kingdom (2007) ECHR (44362/04), the Grand Chamber underscored the role of rehabilitation as follows: “In recent years there has been a trend towards placing more emphasis on rehabilitation, as demonstrated notably by the Council of Europe’s legal instruments. While rehabilitation was recognised as a means of preventing recidivism, more recently and more positively it constitutes rather the idea of resocialisation through the fostering of personal responsibility. This objective is reinforced by the development of the ‘progression principle’: in the course of serving a sentence, a prisoner should move progressively through the prison system thereby moving from the early days of a sentence, when the emphasis may be on punishment and retribution, to the latter stages, when the emphasis should be on preparation for release.” Again, in Vinter & Others v The United Kingdom (2013) ECHR (66069/09, 130/10, 3896/10), at paras. 111-114, the Grand Chamber further expounded the integral relationship between rehabilitation and the prospect of release: ‘It is axiomatic that a prisoner cannot be detained unless there are legitimate penological grounds for that detention. As was recognised by the Court of Appeal in Bieber and the Chamber in its judgment in the present case, these grounds will include punishment, deterrence, public protection and rehabilitation. Many of these grounds will be present at the time when a life sentence is imposed. However, the balance between these justifications for detention is not necessarily static and may shift in the course of the sentence. What may be the primary justification for detention at the start of the sentence may not be so after a lengthy period into the service of the sentence. It is only by carrying out a review of the justification for continued detention at an appropriate point in the sentence that these factors or shifts can be properly evaluated. Moreover, if such a prisoner is incarcerated without any prospect of release and without the possibility of having his life sentence reviewed, there is the risk that he can never atone for his offence: whatever the prisoner does in prison, however exceptional his progress towards rehabilitation, his punishment remains fixed and