Published on 4 April 2022
FOURTH SECTION
Application no. 28157/18
F.B.
against the Netherlands
lodged on 12 June 2018
communicated on 17 March 2022
SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE
The application concerns the alleged lack of any genuine prospect of the applicant’s release from his life-imprisonment sentence. That sentence was imposed on him by a first instance court in 2012 and by the Court of Appeal of The Hague in 2015; the latter tribunal found him guilty of three murders and illegal possession of a firearm. On 19 December 2017 the Supreme Court rejected the applicant’s appeal in cassation. Having regard, inter alia, to the entry into force on 1 March 2017 of the Decree Advisory Committee Life-Sentenced Prisoners (Besluit Adviescollege Levenslanggestraften) the Supreme Court considered that Dutch law now provided for a review mechanism which was compatible with the standards developed in the Court’s case-law and on the basis of which life sentences could, in appropriate cases, be reduced. Therefore, the imposition of a life sentence was not in itself contrary to Article 3 of the Convention.
The applicant, in essence, alleges that current Dutch legislation and practice still do not meet the Convention standards, making his life sentence de jure and de facto irreducible, contrary to Article 3 of the Convention.
QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES
1. Is the applicant’s life sentence compatible with Article 3 of the Convention? In particular, do the criteria and conditions for review laid down in domestic law have a sufficient degree of clarity and certainty, enabling the applicant to know, at the outset of his sentence, what he must do to be considered for release, and under what conditions a review of his sentence will take place (see Vinter and Others v. the United Kingdom [GC], nos. 66069/09 and 2 others, ECHR 2013, §§ 119-122; Murray v. the Netherlands [GC], no. 10511/10, §§ 99-104, 26 April 2016; and Hutchinson v. the United Kingdom [GC], no. 57592/08, §§ 42-45, 17 January 2017)?
2. The Government are requested (1) to indicate how the practice of the review of life sentences has developed since the entry into force of the Decree Advisory Committee Life‑Sentenced Prisoners, and (2) to provide an overview of recent domestic case-law regarding that practice.