A man serving a life sentence over four murders carried out over an 18-day killing spree back in 1988 has failed in his attempt to obtain a judicial review of the Parole Board decision that his detention was still justified.

Ben Ali Wahid Ben Hassine had been convicted in February 1992, along with co-national Mohsen Bin Brahim Mosbah, of the murder of two taxi drivers and another two men, a British and a French man, in a case which had shocked the country. 

The two men admitted to killing James Reed at Ta’ Xbiex on a yacht on February 12, 1988, and Alfred Cucciardi, a taxi driver, on the same night. Six days later, they killed taxi driver Alfred Darmanin and Frenchman Michel Levarlet. The two were sentenced to life imprisonment and the court recommended that Mr Ben Hassine serve a minimum of 22 years.

After spending 22 years behind bars, Mr Ben Hassine filed constitutional proceedings claiming that the fact that his sentence had no prospect of revision breached his fundamental human rights.

The two were sentenced to life imprisonment and the court recommended that Mr Ben Hassine serve a minimum of 22 years

In November 2016, the Constitutional Court had called upon the legislator to provide for a mechanism intended to reduce a life sentence and to do so within four months.

Drawing on EU case-law, the court had declared that the absence of such mechanism constituted a violation of the right to protection against inhuman treatment as safeguarded by the Constitution.

In April 2017, the court had ordered the parole board to hear the prisoner and assess if he was still a danger to society or whether he was an ideal candidate for parole.

A month later, the board returned a decision wherein it declared that “in spite of progress registered by the applicant towards rehabilitation, his detention was still justified”, adding that he ought not be released unconditionally. His request for parole was to be reconsidered in five years' time.

Following that decision, the inmate filed an action for judicial review of the parole board’s decision.

The parole board, as defendants in this case alongside the Attorney General, had raised a preliminary plea that the action could not succeed since the review by the board was not an administrative act in terms of law.

Moreover, it was argued that the board had been acting in line with the decision of the Constitutional Court.

The court, presided over by Mr Justice Joseph R Micallef upheld the first preliminary plea and declared that the board’s decision did not amount to an administrative act since it did not fall within the definition of a “public authority” but was rather a “statutory board with a quasi-judicial function”.

The court held that the meaning of the term “administrative act” was not intended by the legislator to incorporate also those decisions of a statutory board or tribunal.

Moreover, there were judgments stating that the review of such decisions “fell completely outside the powers of the court” presiding over an action for the judicial review of an administrative act in terms of law.

Without delving into the other preliminary pleas, the court dismissed the case of Mr Ben Hassine, declaring that the applicant was entitled to seek other remedies at law.

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