After the Attorney general requested clarification of the European court’s request that life sentencing in the UK would have need to be reviewed, the court of appeal ruled the UK has the ability to set ‘whole-life’ sentences.
British judges can now therefore keep those who are deemed most dangerous to “whole life” sentences in the European court of appeal accepted.
The appeal judges confirmed that a European court of human rights ruling last year (pdf) that such whole life sentences needed to be reviewed at some stage does not prevent murderers being sent to prison for the rest of their lives in the most serious cases. The appeal court judges, including the lord chief justice, deemed European human rights judges found it incorrect that under British law it does not clearly provide whole life inmates with any possibility of release, and that such a power clearly existed in exceptional circumstances.
From an original article in the Guardian for more information.
http://www.theguardian.com/law/2014/feb/18/whole-life-sentences-can-continue-appeal-court-rules