1. The Commission underlines that while normally, it would hold that prisoners have no right to chose which prison they are placed in, this jurisprudence has concerned prisons in one country. This case is different, because the Bahamas and the UK are very far appart. Consequently, there is an interference with the applicant’s private life (which is any way is legitimised because he has, inter alia, killed a prison guard in the Bahamas and needs to be placed in a secure location which is not available in that country).
2. The Commission for one of the first times uses the notion of ‘balancing’, without really carving this method of case resolution out. It holds: ‘There appears to be no dispute that if the applicant were to be detained in the Bahamas it would be necessary to construct a special place of detention for him, because there is now no prison or hospital there where he could be held. The question becomes one of balance and reasonableness. There is no suggestion that the applicant’s family life has been interfered with merely because of administrative convenience. He has been moved to, and kept in, a place far from his home because there is no place near to his home where he can be kept in reasonable security.’