39
SILVER AND OTHERS v. THE UNITED KINGDOM JUGDMENT
least prior to 1 December 1981, the conditions for the submission of such
petitions imposed limitations on the availability of this remedy in some
circumstances (see paragraph 53 above).
117. The English courts, for their part, are endowed with a certain
supervisory jurisdiction over the exercise of the powers conferred on the
Home Secretary and the prison authorities by the Prison Act and the Rules
(see paragraph 55 above). However, their jurisdiction is limited to
determining whether or not those powers have been exercised arbitrarily, in
bad faith, for an improper motive or in an ultra vires manner.
In this connection, the applicants stressed that the Convention, not being
incorporated into domestic law, could not be directly invoked before the
English courts; however, they acknowledged that it was relevant for the
interpretation of ambiguous legislation, according to the presumption of the
latter’s conformity with the treaty obligations of the United Kingdom.
118. The applicants made no allegation that the interferences with their
correspondence were contrary to English law (see paragraph 86 above).
Like the Commission, the Court has found that the majority of the measures
complained of in the present proceedings were incompatible with the
Convention (see paragraph 105 above). In most of the cases, the
Government did not contest the Commission’s findings. Neither did they
maintain that the English courts could have found the measures to have been
taken arbitrarily, in bad faith, for an improper motive or in an ultra vires
manner.
In the Court’s view, to the extent that the applicable norms, whether
contained in the Rules or in the relevant Orders or Instructions, were
incompatible with the Convention there could be no effective remedy as
required by Article 13 (art. 13) and consequently there has been a violation
of that Article (art. 13).
To the extent, however, that the said norms were compatible with Article
8 (art. 8), the aggregate of the remedies available satisfied the requirements
of Article 13 (art. 13), at least in those cases in which it was possible for a
petition to be submitted to the Home Secretary (see paragraph 116 above): a
petition to the Home Secretary was available to secure compliance with the
directives issued by him and, as regards compliance with the Rules, the
English courts had the supervisory jurisdiction described in paragraph 117
above.
119. To sum up, in those instances where the norms in question were
incompatible with the Convention and where the Court has found a
violation of Article 8 (art. 8) to have occurred there was no effective remedy
and Article 13 (art. 13) has therefore also been violated. In the remaining
cases, there is no reason to assume that the applicants’ complaints could not
have been duly examined by the Home Secretary and/or the English courts
and Article 13 (art. 13) has therefore not been violated; this, however, is
subject to the exception of Mr. Silver’s letter no. 7, in respect of which the