25
SILVER AND OTHERS v. THE UNITED KINGDOM JUGDMENT
alternatively
(b) to decide and declare that the facts found disclose no breaches by the United
Kingdom of its obligations under Article 6 (art. 6) of the Convention otherwise than as
set forth in the report of the Commission;
(3) With regard to Article 13 (art. 13)
to decide and declare that the facts found do not disclose a breach by the United
Kingdom of its obligations under Article 13 (art. 13) of the Convention, alternatively
that such facts would not disclose any such breach after the coming into effect of the
revised Standing Orders relating to prisoners’ correspondence."
AS TO THE LAW
I. THE SCOPE OF THE PRESENT CASE
76. The applicants complained principally of the stopping or delaying of
particular letters, but they also alleged that in this area practices in breach of
the Convention continued to exist.
77. The Court does not have to examine this additional allegation. This is
because the Commission’s decision declaring an application admissible
determines the object of the case brought before the Court (see, inter alia,
the Ireland v. the United Kingdom judgment of 18 January 1978, Series A
no. 25, p. 63, § 157). And, in the present case, the Commission, in its
decisions on the admissibility of the applications, stated that the questions
which necessitated an examination on the merits were whether the
interference constituted by the censorship of correspondence in a number of
instances was justified under Article 8 § 2 (art. 8-2) and whether it involved
other issues under the Convention. The Commission’s subsequent
consideration of the case did not extend beyond those questions.
78. As is recorded in paragraphs 25-56 above, the practice in England
and Wales on the control of prisoners’ correspondence has undergone
substantial modification since the date of the Commission’s report. For this
reason, the Government did not contest many of the Commission’s findings;
they emphasised that the revised Orders had now been published and that
the majority of the letters involved in this case would not have been stopped
under the new regime. These circumstances enabled the President to make
his Order of 22 July 1982 limiting the scope of the hearings to the issues
still in dispute (see paragraph 6 above).
The applicants criticised the new control system in various respects. The
Government, for their part, asked the Court to take note of the changes
effected in 1981 and also in 1975 (see paragraph 32 above); although their