Chapter 5 • Human Rights and Arrest, Pre-Trial and Administrative Detention a person of his liberty when that decision is made by a court at the close of judicial proceedings”, for instance when a prison sentence is imposed after “conviction by a competent court” in accordance with article 5(1)(a) of the Convention.204 Periodic review of lawfulness of detention: As noted by the Court, however, article 5(4) “sometimes requires the possibility of subsequent review of the lawfulness of detention by a court”, for instance with regard to the detention of persons of unsound mind within the meaning of article 5(1)(e), “where the reasons initially warranting confinement may cease to exist”. In the view of the Court, “it would be contrary to the object and purpose of Article 5 to interpret paragraph 4 thereof ... as making this category of confinement immune from subsequent review of lawfulness merely provided that the initial decision issued from a court”.205 According to the reasoning of the European Court, the same principle applies also “to the detention ‘after conviction by a competent court’ mentioned in paragraph 1 (a), but only in certain specific circumstances”, including, for example: v “the placing of a recidivist at the Government’s disposal in Belgium”; v “the continuing detention of a person sentenced to an ‘indeterminate’ or ‘discretionary’ life sentence in Great Britain”; and v “the detention for security reasons of a person with an underdeveloped and permanently impaired mental capacity in Norway”.206 In these kinds of circumstances, in particular, there must consequently exist a possibility for persons deprived of their liberty to have the lawfulness of their detention reviewed by a court at regular intervals. With regard to persons of unsound mind who are “compulsorily confined in a psychiatric institution for an indefinite or lengthy period”, they are also “in principle entitled, at any rate where there is no automatic periodic review of a judicial character, to take proceedings at reasonable intervals before a court to put in issue the ‘lawfulness’ – within the meaning of the Convention ... – of [their] detention, whether that detention was ordered by a civil or criminal court or by some other authority”.207 However, such review should be “wide enough to bear on those conditions which, according to the Convention, are essential for the ‘lawful’ detention of a person on the ground of unsoundness of mind, especially as the reasons capable of initially justifying such a detention may cease to exist”.208 204 Eur. Court HR, Case of Iribarne Pérez v. France, judgment of 24 October 1995, Series A, No. 325-C, p. 63, para. 30. 205 Ibid., loc. cit. 206 Ibid. 207 Eur. Court HR, Case of X. v. the United Kingdom, judgment of 5 November 1981, Series A, No. 46, para. 52 at p. 23. 208 Ibid., p. 25, para. 58. 204 Human Rights in the Administration of Justice: A Manual on Human Rights for Judges, Prosecutors and Lawyers