Part 7: Sentencing and release Chapter 1: Custodial sentences Section 133: Power to make provision for reconsideration and setting aside of Parole Board decisions
Section 133 expands the rules the Secretary of State may make under section 239(5) of the CJA 2003, concerning proceedings of the Parole Board, by inserting new subsections (5A) to (5C).
	New section 239(5A) provides that such rules may make provision requiring or permitting the Parole Board to make provisional decisions which must or may be reconsidered before they become final. The rules may also confer a power on the Parole Board to be able to set aside its decisions and directions if they fall within new section 239(5B). These rules may be concerned with Parole Board cases dealt with under Chapter 6 of Part 12 of the CJA 2003 (which deals with release of fixed-term prisoners) or under Chapter 2 of Part 2 of the Crime (Sentences) Act 1997 (release of life and indeterminate prisoners).
	New section 239(5B) sets out two instances where provision may be made in the rules for the Parole Board to set aside a decision or direction. The first is concerned with both decisions not to release or directions to release where the Parole Board determines that it would not have given or made its decision or direction but for an error of law or fact. The second is only concerned with directions to release where the Parole Board determines it would not have made the direction if either:
information that was not available to the Board when the direction was given had been so available; or
a change in circumstances relating to the prisoner that occurred after the direction was given had occurred before it was given.
	New section 239(5C) provides that the power to set aside a direction to release cannot apply where the prisoner has already been released from prison in accordance with that direction and is in the community on licence. It also provides that the rules may suspend any requirement on the Secretary of State to release a prisoner following a direction from the Board in cases where a decision of the Board is pending on whether to set aside the release direction.