R v Secretary of State for the Home Department, ex parte Zulfikar [1996] COD 256

Citation: R v Secretary of State for the Home Department, ex parte Zulfikar [1996] COD 256

Decision

Ex parte Zulfikar established certain principles which should be adopted by the Parole Board when a prisoner comes before it seeking a progressive move to open conditions and/ or ultimately release. Those principles are as follows:

1. Each case is decided upon its own merits and its own facts;
2. There is a presumption that the prisoner before it has been properly convicted, i.e. he was in fact guilty of the index offence;
3. The Parole Board must take into account any denial of guilt from the part of the prisoner;
4. The Board must also take into account if the prisoner has refused to participate in offending behaviour programmes in order to address his risk;
5. However, release cannot be refused purely because the prisoner denies his guilt, although in practice it is easy to see how denial makes a demonstration of risk reduction more difficult (i.e. a denier cannot demonstrate remorse for the offending, and there may also be difficulties in effectively engaging with offending behaviour courses).