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danger which such persons represent and to provide the executive with an opportunity of endeavouring to reform the detained persons (see judgment in the Van Droogenbroeck case, Series A, vol. 50, paras. 47-48).
However, as the Court and the Commission have both pointed out, these cases are fundamentally different from those of the conditional release of prisoners sentenced by a court to a period of imprisonment Imposed by the court as being appropriate to the case (see the above-mentioned judgment in Van Droogenbroeck case, para. 47, which on this point refers to the Commission's Report in the same case). In the first category of cases, the ground of detention is the applicant's mental status or his dangerous nature, these being factors which may change as time goes by. In the second category of cases, the detention is a punishment for the immutable fact that a person has been found guilty of an offence. It is irrelevant, in principle, whether the prison sentence which has been imposed as a punishment is for a specific period or for life. In both these cases the court which pronounced the sentence must be considered to have authorised the sentenced person's detention for the time indicated in the sentence, and no further judicial review is therefore required under Art. 5(4).
In the present case, the applicant was sentenced by a court to imprisonment for life. Consequently, there was a court decision which authorised the applicant's detention for the rest of his life. The fact that the trial judge as well as the Court of Appeal judge referred to the possibility of the applicant being released after some time does not alter the legal effect of the sentence which was to authorise the applicant's detention for the rest of his life.
For these reasons, I consider that the applicant did not have a further right under Art. 5(4) of the Convention to have the lawfulness of his continued detention examined by a court. I conclude, therefore, that Art. 5(4) has not been violated.