Sultan - International Protection of Human Rights - Spring 1999
Sultan
International Protection of Human Rights
Spring 1999
A.M.T., age 15, a citizen of the United Kingdom resident on the Isle
of Man, pleaded guilty in the juvenile court to unlawful assault
occasioning actual bodily harm to a senior pupil at his school, the latter
having reported A.M.T. and three other boys (all of whom were
involved in the assault) for taking beer into the school, as a result of
which they had all been caned. On March 7, 1998 the court sentenced
the applicant to three strokes of the birch. An appeal to the Staff of
Government division of the Isle of Man High Court was heard and
dismissed on the afternoon of April 28, 1998, the court taking the view
that an unprovoked assault occasioning actual bodily harm was always
very serious and there were no reasons for interfering with the
sentence. The applicant had been medically examined before the
appeal by order of the court and he was declared fit to receive the
punishment. Later that afternoon, after waiting a considerable time in a
police station for a doctor to arrive, the birching was carried out in the
presence of his father and the doctor. He was made to take down his
trousers and underpants and bend over a table; two policemen held
him while a third administered the punishment, pieces of the birch
breaking at the first stroke. His father had to be restrained from
attacking one of the police officers. The applicants skin was raised but
not cut and he was sore for about a week and a half afterwards.
The isle of Man was not a part of the United Kingdom but a
dependence of the Crown with its own government legislature and
courts and its own administrative, fiscal and legal systems. The Crown
was ultimately responsible for the good government of the Island and
acted through the privy Council on the recommendation of Ministers of
the UK Government in their capacity as Privy counselors, the Home
Secretary having primary responsibility for Man affairs.
By constitutional convention, the UK Parliament did not exercise the
power it had to legislate on the Island's domestic affairs such as penal
policy, without its consent. This Policy would be followed unless
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