Life prison sentences which provided no possibility for review or reduction violated a person's right to be free from torture or inhumane and degrading punishment, a court of appeal found today. 

The landmark judgment was made following a constitutional application filed by a man serving a life sentence for murder. 

Ben Hassine Ben Ali Wahid had admitted to the brutal quadruple murder of two taxi drivers and two men, one British and the other French, in a February 1992 killing spree that shocked the nation.

The criminal court had condemned the Tunisian to life imprisonment and had recommended that he was to serve a minimum of 22 years behind bars.

The accused filed a constitutional application in 2013, claiming that the judgment violated his fundamental rights since it did not contemplate any possible review of the sentence.

A civil court had thrown out the case on the grounds that the possibility of a Presidential pardon and the system of prison leave provided under Maltese law were sufficient to guarantee a possible reduction of a life sentence.

But a court of appeal with superior jurisdiction presided by Chief Justice Silvio Camilleri, Mr Justice Giannino Caruana Demajo and Mr Justice Noel Cuschieri today concluded that neither of those mechanisms were ideal.

The court noted that no revision of the accused's sentence was ever made. Moreover, the letter recommending a minimum of 22 years sent by the criminal court to the Prime Minister had been kept by the prison authorities, who refused to hand it over to the accused.

The court concluded that the judgment of the criminal court violated the rights of the accused since it did not contemplate any effective and objective review of the life sentence.

For this reason, the court imposed a term of four months for Parliament to provide a suitable review mechanism as proposed by the extensive case law of the European Court of Human Rights.

Should no such mechanism be set up then the accused would have the right to revert to the court of appeal for a remedy.