Bulger ruling may end ‘political sentencing’

In two judgments delivered at Strasbourg on 16.12.99 in the case of T. v. the UK and V. v. the UK, the European Court of Human Rights rejected unanimously the Government's preliminary objection that the applicants had not exhausted domestic remedies and held that there had been a violation of the defendents rights to a fair trial, a violation as regards the setting of the tariff and a violation of the right to have continuing lawfulness of detention decided by a court. Case brought by those working on the behalf of the two boys convicted of the murder of James Bulger in 1993