Part 4: Prisoners Whole life prisoners prohibited from forming a marriage or civil partnership Section 75: Whole life prisoners prohibited from forming a marriage
Section 75(1) amends the Marriage Act 1949 by inserting a new section to prohibit whole life prisoners from marrying unless they have permission from the Secretary of State.
	New section 2A(1) sets out which prisoners may not marry, with more detail as to the meaning and interpretation of specific terms provided in paragraph 2A (5) and (6). To be in scope an individual must fulfil two criteria.
	Firstly, they must be serving a life sentence in a prison or other place of detention (such as a Young Offender Institution or secure hospital). This would exclude prisoners released on licence on compassionate grounds under section 30(1) of the Crime (Sentences) Act 1997.
	Secondly, they must be subject to either:
A court order that they should not be eligible for release by the Parole Board under the usual release arrangements for life sentence prisoners; or
A mandatory life sentence received before December 2003, having been notified in writing before that date that the Secretary of State did not intend that they should ever be released on licence; and the High Court must have not since ordered that the early release provisions should instead apply.
New subsections 2A(2) and (3) set out a process for exemptions to be granted by written permission from the Secretary of State. The Secretary of State may only give permission for a whole life prisoner to marry if satisfied that this is justified by exceptional circumstances
New subsection 2A(4) establishes that if a whole life prisoner does manage to marry without written permission from the Secretary of State, their marriage will not be legally valid.