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| Judgments - Regina v. Her Majesty's Coroner for the Western District of Somerset (Respondent) and another (Appellant) ex parte Middleton (FC) (Respondent)
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APPELLATE COMMITTEE Somerset (Respondent) and other (Appellant) ex parte Middleton (FC) (Respondent)
REPORT Ordered to be printed 11 March 2004 LONDON (HL Paper 51) 19th REPORT 11 MARCH 2004 Regina v. Her Majesty's Coroner for the Western District of Somerset (Respondent) and another (Appellant) ex parte Middleton (FC) (Respondent) ORDERED TO REPORT The Committee (Lord Bingham of Cornhill, Lord Hope of Craighead, Lord Walker of Gestingthorpe, Baroness Hale of Richmond and Lord Carswell) have met and considered the cause Regina v. Her Majesty's Coroner for the Western District of Somerset (Respondent) and another (Appellant) ex parte Middleton (FC) (Respondent). We have heard counsel on behalf of the appellant and both respondents. 1. This is the considered opinion of the Committee. 2. The European Court of Human Rights has repeatedly interpreted article 2 of the European Convention as imposing on member states substantive obligations not to take life without justification and also to establish a framework of laws, precautions, procedures and means of enforcement which will, to the greatest extent reasonably practicable, protect life. See, for example, LCB v United Kingdom (1998) 27 EHRR 212, para 36; Osman v United Kingdom (1998) 29 EHRR 245; Powell v United Kingdom (App No 45305/99, unreported 4 May 2000), 16-17; Keenan v United Kingdom (2001) 33 EHRR 913, paras 88-90; Edwards v United Kingdom (2002) 35 EHRR 487, para 54; Calvelli and Ciglio v Italy (App No 32967/96, unreported, 17 January 2002); Öneryildiz v Turkey (App No 48939/99, unreported, 18 June 2002). 3. The European Court has also interpreted article 2 as imposing on member states a procedural obligation to initiate an effective public investigation by an independent official body into any death occurring in circumstances in which it appears that one or other of the foregoing substantive obligations has been, or may have been, violated and it appears that agents of the state are, or may be, in some way implicated. See, for example, Taylor v United Kingdom (1994) 79-A DR 127, 137; McCann v United Kingdom (1995) 21 EHRR 97, para 161; Powell v United Kingdom, supra p 17; Salman v Turkey (2000) 34 EHRR 425, para 104; Sieminska v Poland (App No 37602/97, unreported, 29 March 2001); Jordan v United Kingdom (2001) 37 EHRR 52, para 105; Edwards v United Kingdom, supra, para 69; Öneryildiz v Turkey, supra, paras 90-91; Mastromatteo v Italy (App No 37703/97, unreported, 24 October 2002). 4. The scope of the state's substantive obligations has been the subject of previous decisions such as Osman and Keenan but is not in issue in this appeal. Nor does any issue arise about participation in the official investigation by the family or next of kin of the deceased, as recently considered by the House in R (Amin) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2003] UKHL 51, [2003] 3 WLR 1169. The issue here concerns not the conduct of the investigation itself but its culmination. It is, or may be, necessary to consider three questions. (1) What, if anything, does the Convention require (by way of verdict, judgment, findings or recommendations) of a properly conducted official investigation into a death involving, or possibly involving, a violation of article 2? (2) Does the regime for holding inquests established by the Coroners Act 1988 and the Coroners Rules 1984 (SI 1984/552), as hitherto understood and followed in England and Wales, meet those requirements of the Convention? (3) If not, can the current regime governing the conduct of inquests in England and Wales be revised so as to do so, and if so how? 5. Before turning to consider these questions it should be observed that they are very important questions. Compliance with the substantive obligations referred to above must rank among the highest priorities of a modern democratic state governed by the rule of law. Any violation or potential violation must be treated with great seriousness. In the context of this appeal the questions have a particular importance also. For, as the facts summarised in paragraphs 39-43 below make clear, the appeal concerns an inquest into the suicide, in prison, of a serving prisoner. Unhappily, this is not a rare event. The statistics given in recent publications, (notably "Suicide is Everyone's Concern, A Thematic Review by HM Chief Inspector of Prisons for England and Wales" (May 1999), the Annual Report of HM Chief Inspector of Prisons for England and Wales 2002-2003, and Evidence given to the House of Lords and House of Commons Joint Committee on Human Rights (HL Paper 12, HC 134, January 2004) make grim reading. While the suicide rate among the population as a whole is falling, the rate among prisoners is rising. In the 14 years 1990-2003 there were 947 self-inflicted deaths in prison, 177 of which were of detainees aged 21 or under. Currently, almost two people kill themselves in prison each week. Over a third have been convicted of no offence. One in five is a woman (a proportion far in excess of the female prison population). One in five deaths occurs in a prison hospital or segregation unit. 40% of self-inflicted deaths occur within the first month of custody. It must of course be remembered that many of those in prison are vulnerable, inadequate or mentally disturbed; many have drug problems; and imprisonment is inevitably, for some, a very traumatic experience. These statistics, grim though they are, do not of themselves point towards any dereliction of duty on the part of the authorities (which have given much attention to the problem) or any individual official. But they do highlight the need for an investigative regime which will not only expose any past violation of the state's substantive obligations already referred to but also, within the bounds of what is practicable, promote measures to prevent or minimise the risk of future violations. The death of any person involuntarily in the custody of the state, otherwise than from natural causes, can never be other than a ground for concern. This appeal is concerned with the death of a long-term convicted prisoner but the same principles must apply to the death of any person in the custody of the prison service or the police. 6. Question (1) What, if anything, does the Convention require (by way of verdict, judgment, findings or recommendations) of a properly conducted official investigation into a death involving, or possibly involving, a violation of article 2? 7. The European Court has never expressly ruled what the final product of an official investigation, to satisfy the procedural obligation imposed by article 2 of the Convention, should be. This is because the Court applies principles and does not lay down rules, because the Court pays close attention to the facts of the case before it and because it recognises that different member states seek to discharge their Convention obligations through differing institutions and procedures. In this appeal the Committee heard oral submissions on behalf of the Secretary of State, HM Coroner for the Western District of Somerset and Mrs Jean Middleton, and received written submissions on behalf of the Coroners' Society of England and Wales, the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission and Inquest. It was not suggested that the express terms of the Convention or any ruling of the Court provide a clear answer to this first question before the House. 8. The Court has recognised (in McCann v United Kingdom, para 146) that its approach to the interpretation of article 2
Thus if an official investigation is to meet the state's procedural obligation under article 2 the prescribed procedure must work in practice and must fulfil the purpose for which the investigation is established. 9. What is the purpose for which the official investigation is established? The decided cases assist in answering that question. In Keenan v United Kingdom, which concerned a prisoner who had committed suicide, the article 2 argument was directed to the state's performance of its substantive, not its procedural, obligation. The Court did, however, note the limited scope of an inquest in England and Wales (paragraphs 75-78), which was relevant to the applicant's complaint under article 13 that national law afforded her no effective remedy. In the context of that complaint the Government agreed (paragraph 121)
In paragraph 122 the Court, still with reference to this complaint, ruled:
On the facts, the Court held (paragraph 131) that a civil action in damages would not have afforded the applicant an effective remedy which would have established where responsibility lay for the death of the deceased. 10. Jordan v United Kingdom arose from the fatal shooting of a young man by a police officer in Northern Ireland. The Court found a violation of article 2 in respect of failings in the investigative procedures concerning the death. The Court held:
There was argument whether the inquest, which had been opened but not concluded, would satisfy the state's investigative obligation, but the Court concluded that, on the facts of this case, it would not:
The Court held (paragraph 142) that the Northern Irish inquest procedure fell short of what article 2 required because (among other shortcomings) it
11. The killing in Edwards v United Kingdom was of a prisoner by another prisoner with whom he shared a cell. The killer was charged with murder but his plea of guilty to manslaughter by reason of diminished responsibility was accepted, and there was accordingly no investigation in the criminal trial of how the two men came to be sharing a cell. This, not surprisingly, was a feature of the case which greatly concerned the family of the deceased. In paragraph 69 of its judgment, the Court described the purpose of the investigation required by article 2 in exactly the same terms as it had used in paragraph 105 of its judgment in Jordan, quoted above. A violation was found. 12. In Mastromatteo v Italy the deceased had been killed by a group of criminals, some of whom were on leave of absence from prison and one of whom had absconded from prison. A complaint that the state had violated its substantive obligation under article 2 was rejected (paragraph 79). So too was a complaint that the state's procedural obligation had been violated (paragraph 96). This complaint was primarily directed to the possibility of obtaining compensation (paragraphs 80-82), but the Court, while finding (paragraph 92) that there was a procedural obligation to determine the circumstances of the death, found the obligation to be met by the trial and conviction of two of the murderers and the making of a compensation order. 13. Basing themselves primarily on Keenan, Jordan and Edwards, the parties made competing submissions on what the procedural investigative obligation under article 2 requires. For the Secretary of State, it was argued that what is required, where the obligation arises, is a full, thorough, independent and public investigation of the facts surrounding and leading to the death but not necessarily culminating in any decision on whether the state or any individual is responsible. The duty is to investigate, no more. If the investigation yields evidence of delinquency on the part of the state or its agents, then the victim must have a remedy. But that is a requirement of article 13, not of the procedural obligation under article 2. Counsel for Mrs Middleton challenged this approach. If an investigation is to ensure the accountability of state agents or bodies for deaths occurring under their responsibility (Jordan, paragraph 105) and be capable of leading to a determination of whether the force used had been justified (Jordan, paragraph 107) and to establish the cause of death or the person or persons responsible (Jordan, paragraph 107), then it must culminate in a finding which, while it need not convict any person of crime nor constitute an enforceable civil judgment against any party, must express the fact-finding body's judgment on the cardinal issues concerning the death. 14. In choosing between these submissions assistance is gained by comparing the Court's decisions in McCann and Jordan. McCann arose from the fatal shooting by soldiers of three people, believed to be terrorists, in Gibraltar. A lengthy and detailed inquest was held, also in Gibraltar, when much evidence was heard. It was clear from the outset when and where the deceased had died, and that they had been shot by the soldiers. The central question was whether the soldiers had been justified in shooting and killing the deceased. On this issue the coroner directed the jury in some detail, giving illustrations of conduct which would amount to unlawful killing, and leaving to the jury three verdicts which he regarded as reasonably open to them (paragraph 120): these were unlawful killing (unlawful homicide), lawful killing (justifiable reasonable homicide) or an open verdict. The jury could thus indicate, by returning an open verdict, their inability to decide or, by choosing one or other of the remaining verdicts, express their judgment on the central, and very important, issue. Although criticism was made of the adequacy of the inquest proceedings as an investigative mechanism, the Court concluded that the alleged shortcomings in the proceedings had not substantially hampered the carrying out of a thorough, impartial and careful examination of the circumstances surrounding the killings (paragraph 163). The inquest could not, of course, have culminated in an award of compensation. 15. In Jordan, to which reference is made in paragraph 10 above, the central issue was very much the same but a different result was reached. One of the reasons for this was that the jury were only permitted in their verdict to give the identity of the deceased and the date, place and cause of death and not, as in England, Wales and Gibraltar, to return any one of several verdicts including "unlawful death". A verdict in the permitted form would not, the Court held, operate to trigger criminal prosecution. In a situation where the Director of Public Prosecutions of Northern Ireland had decided not to prosecute, with no reasons given, and with no effective means of requiring reasons to be given (paragraph 122), the Court regarded the inquest as inadequate to investigate the possible breach of the state's substantive obligation under article 2. 16. It seems safe to infer that the state's procedural obligation to investigate is unlikely to be met if it is plausibly alleged that agents of the state have used lethal force without justification, if an effectively unchallengeable decision has been taken not to prosecute and if the fact-finding body cannot express its conclusion on whether unjustifiable force has been used or not, so as to prompt reconsideration of the decision not to prosecute. Where, in such a case, an inquest is the instrument by which the state seeks to discharge its investigative obligation, it seems that an explicit statement, however brief, of the jury's conclusion on the central issue is required. 17. Does that requirement apply only to the very limited category of cases just defined, or does it apply to other cases as well? The decision in Keenan shows that it does apply to a broader category of cases, since although in that case no breach of the state's investigative obligation was alleged or found, the Court based its conclusion that article 13 had been violated in part on its opinion (paragraph 121) that the inquest, which did not permit any determination of liability, did not furnish the applicant with the possibility of establishing the responsibility of the prison authorities nor did it (paragraph 122) constitute an investigation capable of leading to the identification and punishment of those responsible for the deprivation of life. A statement of the inquest jury's conclusions on the main facts leading to the suicide of Mark Keenan would have precluded that comment. 18. Two considerations fortify confidence in the correctness of this conclusion. First, a verdict of an inquest jury (other than an open verdict, sometimes unavoidable) which does not express the jury's conclusion on a major issue canvassed in the evidence at the inquest cannot satisfy or meet the expectations of the deceased's family or next-of-kin. Yet they, like the deceased, may be victims. They have been held to have legitimate interests in the conduct of the investigation (Jordan, paragraph 109), which is why they must be accorded an appropriate level of participation (see also R (Amin) v Secretary of State for the Home Department, supra). An uninformative jury verdict will be unlikely to meet what the House in Amin, paragraph 31, held to be one of the purposes of an article 2 investigation:
19. The second consideration is that while the use of lethal force by agents of the state must always be a matter of the greatest seriousness, a systemic failure to protect human life may call for an investigation which may be no less important and perhaps even more complex: see Amin, paragraphs 21, 41, 50 and 62. It would not promote the objects of the Convention if domestic law were to distinguish between cases where an agent of the state may have used lethal force without justification and cases in which a defective system operated by the state may have failed to afford adequate protection to human life. 20. The European Court has repeatedly recognised that there are many different ways in which a state may discharge its procedural obligation to investigate under article 2. In England and Wales an inquest is the means by which the state ordinarily discharges that obligation, save where a criminal prosecution intervenes or a public enquiry is ordered into a major accident, usually involving multiple fatalities. To meet the procedural requirement of article 2 an inquest ought ordinarily to culminate in an expression, however brief, of the jury's conclusion on the disputed factual issues at the heart of the case. 21. Question (2) Does the regime for holding inquests established by the Coroners Act 1988 and the Coroners Rules 1984 (SI 1984/552) as hitherto understood and followed in England and Wales, meet the requirements of the Convention? 22. The historical and statutory background to the Coroners Act 1988 and the Coroners Rules 1984 was accurately summarised by the Court of Appeal in R v HM Coroner for North Humberside and Scunthorpe, Ex p Jamieson [1995] QB 1. There has been little significant legislative change in England and Wales since then, and that account need not be repeated. It is enough to identify the main features of the regime so far as relevant to this appeal. 23. By section 8(1) of the Act an inquest must be held where there is reasonable cause to suspect that a deceased person
If there is reason to suspect that the death occurred in prison or in police custody or resulted from an injury caused by a police officer in the purported execution of his duty, the inquest must be held with a jury (section 8(3)), and the independence of jurors dealing with prison deaths is specifically protected (section 8(6)). The requirement to summon a jury in such cases recognises the substantive and procedural obligations of the state which are now derived from article 2 as well as from domestic law. If a coroner fails to hold an inquest when he should, he may be ordered to do so, and if a coroner misconducts an inquest, another inquest may be ordered (section 13). 24. The task of the jury is to "inquire as jurors into the death of the deceased" (section 8(2)(a)) and they are sworn "diligently to inquire into the death of the deceased and to give a true verdict according to the evidence" (section 8(2)(b)). The coroner is to "examine on oath concerning the death all persons who tender evidence as to the facts of the death and all persons having knowledge of those facts whom he considers it expedient to examine" (section 11(2)). Thus the character of the proceedings is quite different from that of an ordinary trial, civil or criminal. The jury, where there is one, must hear the evidence and give their verdict (section 11(3)(a)). Section 11(5) requires that the inquisition, to be signed by the jury or a majority of them, must set out in writing, so far as such particulars have been proved, and in such form as the Lord Chancellor may by rule prescribe,
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