Chapter 5 • Human Rights and Arrest, Pre-Trial and Administrative Detention Detention for reasons of mental health: The case of X. v. the United Kingdom In the case of X v. the United Kingdom, article 5(4) was violated since, in spite of the habeas corpus proceedings, there was no “appropriate procedure allowing a court to examine whether the patient’s disorder still persisted and whether the Home Secretary was entitled to think that a continuation of the compulsory confinement was necessary in the interests of public safety”.209 Given the Home Secretary’s executive discretion in ordering the applicant’s return to the psychiatric hospital, the review exercised by the domestic courts in the habeas corpus proceedings solely concerned “the conformity of the exercise of that discretion with the empowering statute”.210 Detention of juvenile for educational supervision: The case of Bouamar Where a juvenile had been deprived of his liberty and placed in remand prison for the purpose of educational supervision, the European Court accepted that the Juvenile Court was “undoubtedly a ‘court’ from the organisational point of view”, albeit emphasizing “that the intervention of a single body of this kind will satisfy Article 5 § 4 only on condition that ‘the procedure followed has a judicial character and gives to the individual concerned guarantees appropriate to the kind of deprivation of liberty in question’”.211 In determining whether a proceeding provides adequate guarantees, the Court must have regard “‘to the particular nature of the circumstances in which such proceeding takes place’”.212 While reiterating that the scope of the obligation under article 5(4) “is not identical in all circumstances of [sic] for every kind of deprivation of liberty”, the Court held that, nevertheless, “in a case of the present kind”, involving a minor, “it is essential not only that the individual concerned should have the opportunity to be heard in person but that he should also have the effective [assistance] of his lawyer”. In this case the applicant had appeared in person in Court only once, but none of his lawyers had attended the proceedings and, consequently, the applicant, “who was very young at the time”, had not been afforded “the necessary safeguards”.213 Furthermore, no remedies were available that satisfied the conditions of article 5(4), since the further proceedings, including on appeal, suffered from the same defect and the ordinary appeals and the appeals on points of law “had no practical effect”. Consequently, there was a breach of article 5(4) of the Convention.214 209 Ibid., loc. cit. 210 Ibid., p. 24, para. 56. 211 Eur. Court HR, Bouamar Case, judgment of 29 February 1988, Series A, No. 129, p. 23, para. 57. 212 Ibid., loc. cit. 213 Ibid., p. 24, para. 60. 214 Ibid., pp. 24-25, paras. 61-64. Human Rights in the Administration of Justice: A Manual on Human Rights for Judges, Prosecutors and Lawyers 205