The Justice Secretary lost his last power to block the release of dangerous prisoners from jail yesterday when the Court of Appeal ruled that it was a breach of human rights.

Three judges ended the 40-year power of ministers to reject recommendations from the Parole Board for the release of prisoners.

The judges made their ruling in a test case brought by Wayne Thomas Black, described as a “ruthless and dangerous” armed robber, who is serving 24 years for a string of offences including robbery and escaping from a prison van. Black, 39, was involved in a raid on a pawnbrokers’ shop in Golders Green, North London, in 1993 in which a member of the shop’s staff and her mother were handcuffed, blindfolded and held hostage in their home before the £200,000 robbery.

He was given a 20-year sentence at the Old Bailey in 1995. The following year he received another four years for escaping from a prison van while being transported from the Old Bailey to Belmarsh jail in southeast London.

The Parole Board recommended his release on licence in May 2006 but the then Home Secretary refused to comply, saying that Black posed too great a risk of reoffending. Black’s lawyers told the Appeal Court that his fate was “entirely dependent upon a decision by the Executive” and that was a breach of his human rights. They said that Article 5 of the European Convention on Human Rights dictated that prisoners are entitled to have their release dates reviewed “speedily by a court”. Lord Justice Latham said in the judgment: “The inescapable logic is that a prisoner serving a determinate sentence is entitled to have the lawful-ness of his detention determined, not merely speedily, but by a court”.

The judge, sitting with Lord Justice May and Lord Justice Moore-Bick, said that the law as it stood involved a procedure that did not compy with Article 5. He added that it left the “the decision as to release in the hands of the Executive and is therefore capable of being applied arbitrarily”.

Lord Justice Latham said that the Justice Secretary’s power was incompatible with the Human Rights Act.

The ruling affects hundreds of serious and dangerous offenders serving prison terms of more than 15 years but less than life. An estimated 150 a year have their cases considered by the Parole Board, which recommends release in between 30 and 50 cases.

A spokesman for the Ministry of Justice said: “We note the court’s judgment and will be actively considering whether to seek permission to appeal to the House of Lords. No prisoner will be immediately released as a result of this judgment.”

Christine Glenn, chief executive of the Parole Board, said: “I welcome this decision. I think we [the Parole Board] should be a court and I think every decision that has happened points us towards that destination.”

After yesterday’s decision Jack Straw, the Justice Secretary, retains only the power to block a Parole Board recommendation that a life sentence prisoner should be transferred from a closed to an open prison. Mr Straw has indicated that he no longer wants to be “second-guessing” the Parole Board’s recommendations on transfers to open prisons. When he was Home Secretary, between 1997 and 2000, the rejection rate of recommendations to move offenders to open prisons was running at between 6 and 9 per cent, but by 2006-07 it was almost 40 per cent.

Yesterday’s ruling is the latest in a series of court judgments in which po-liticans have lost the power to block the release of prisoners on parole and to set the minimum terms that murderers should serve in prison. In 1991 ministers lost the power to block the release on parole of prisoners given life sentences for crimes. In 1997 the Parole Board won the right to direct the release of juveniles detained at Her Majesty’s Pleasure after being convicted of serious crime and of those given an automatic life sentence for a second sexual offence. And in 2002, after a European Court ruling, ministers lost the power to block recommendations for release of those serving a mandatory life sentence for murder.

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