Because the Act stipulates that governors may impose a levy it is open to governors to decide not to do so in a particular case. These deductions or levies are then provided to Victim Support. Implementing the Act was part of the Government’s drive to make prisoners pay their debt to society and to victims of crime in particular. Deductions or levies are taken or imposed, after tax, National Insurance and other court-ordered payments, from earnings over £20 per week, subject to a 40% maximum rate. The Prisoners Earnings Act 1996 Act applies to prisoners doing work they are not required to do in accordance with the prison rules and for which they earn an enhanced rate of pay. It was also argued that the rules violate Article 7 because they have the effect of imposing a heavier penalty than the one applicable at the time the criminal offence was committed. They invoked the right to peaceful enjoyment of possessions under Article 1 Protocol 1 and in the case of KF, a female prisoner, the right to enjoy Convention rights without discrimination Article 14 was said to be engaged because the levy had a disproportionate effect on women’s ability to earn an income. Two prisoners sought to challenge by way of judicial review part of the prison rules which allowed the prison governors to make certain deductions from their earnings to pay into a victims’ support fund. This case demonstrates the importance of its role in the assessment, by the courts, of the compatibility of laws and rules with Convention rights. In theory it has no application in domestic disputes but ever since the Human Rights Act introduced Convention rights into domestic law there has been an ongoing debate about its applicability at a local level. Margin of appreciation is a doctrine of an international court: it recognises a certain distance of judgment between the Strasbourg court’s overall apprehension of the Convention principles and their application in practice by the national authorities.
![jim duffy takenote jim duffy takenote](https://matthewjamesduffy.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/IMG_8628-800x1067.jpg)
![jim duffy takenote jim duffy takenote](http://www.aveleyman.com/Gallery/2017/D/tve4435-19871205-1037.jpg)
This case about prisoner’s pay provides an interesting up to date analysis of the role of the doctrine of “margin of appreciation” and its applicability in domestic courts. R(on the application of S and KF) v Secretary of State for Justice EWHC 1810 (Admin)- read judgment Courts should take note of Strasboug’s doctrine of deference