time she was sentenced. The Respondent State in that case maintained that the changes in the law and the new approach to remission of sentences were outside the scope of the requirement of non-retroactivity as they did not create a penalty retroactively, but were only addressing the enforcement of a penalty. The European Court found that where changes to the law or the interpretation of the law affected a sentence or remission of sentence in such a way as to seriously alter the sentence in a way that was not foreseeable at the time when it was initially imposed, to the detriment of the convicted person and his or her Convention rights, those changes, by their very nature, concerned the substance of the sentence or penalty and not the procedure or arrangements for executing it, and accordingly fell within the scope of the prohibition of retroactivity8. That Court therefore found a violation of Article 7 of the Convention and having done so, decided on the alleged violation of Article 5 of the Convention, which is in terms similar to Article 6 of the Charter setting out the right "not to be deprived of one's freedom except for reasons and conditions laid down by law". The applicant had argued that a finding of a violation of Article 7 of the Convention would mean that her continued imprisonment from the date when she was due to have been released from prison based on the former sentencing and remission of sentences approach, was therefore not according to a procedure prescribed by law as is required by Article 5 of the Convention. The European Court, having found that the new sentencing and remission of sentences approach fell within the scope of the principle of non-retroactivity set out in Article 7 of the Convention, found that the applicant's continued imprisonment was therefore not according to a procedure prescribed by law and therefore found a violation of Article 5 of the Convention.9 It is on this basis that the Court ordered her release from prison. 18. In the case of Loayza-Tamayo v. Peru, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights ordered the release of the victim as not doing so would have resulted in a situation of double jeopardy, which is prohibited by the American Convention on Human Rights10. 'Ibid paras 108, 109 and 171 9 Ibid para 131 10 Inter-American Court of Human Rights Case of Loayza-Tamayo v. Peru Merits Judgment of 17 September 1997 Series C No. 33, Resolutory paras 5 and 84 5 19. My view is therefore that, there is no other remedy in the circumstances of this case other than that, the Applicant be released. The Court even in the operative paragraph fell shy of pronouncing itself on the release and sought to leave it to the discretion of the State. Going by the attitude of the Respondent in the compliance with the Court's orders in the Alex Thomas case, the Court would have granted the Applicant's relief and ordered that he be released, rather than leaving the issue to the discretion of the Respondent, a discretion which the Respondent may never exercise.