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The writer argues for the removal of Rule 47(21) from Prison Rules. It is contrary to the principle o/nulla poena sine lege and also to that of legal certainty. It is unnecessary in that acts constituting offences against good order and discipline may already be punished under other paragraphs of the Rule. An opportunity to review the question will arise with the drafting of new primary and subordinate legislation.

The writer considers the Home Office responses to Lord Justice Woolf's report on the 1990 prison disturbances insofar as they affect one aspect of prison lift, nameb, the adjudication. He fears that, with the removal from boards of visitors of their adjudicatosy function, elements of natural justice have been placed in jeopardy. It may not be possible for a governor to come to a hearing without bias or without hints that the governor is a judge in his or her own cause not being sufficiently independent. Lord Bridge's dictum in ex parte Leech (1988) to the effect that the governor adjudicates as something other than a servant of the Secretary of State is diyficulty to sustain in practice. The adjudicating governor may be in breach of Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights. The writer offers a way forward whereby discipline may be maintained in prisons through the application of a redrafted Prison Rule 47 and a revision of the present procedure.