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Today life imprisonment is increasingly tested against human right standards. The importance of a perspective on release is being stressed out as the main condition for the humanity of this sentence, not only in the juridical literature but also by the European Court of Human Rights. The European Court states that the life sentence should be de jure and de facto reducible for it not to be in conflict with Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms ('the prohibition on inhuman and degrading punishment'). However the condition of reducibility creates an uncertain situation for the detainee which in turn becomes problematic in relation to the condition of humanity. It is reasonable that an uncertain situation of detention brings about an additional suffering for the convict, on top of the inevitable suffering caused by the deprivation of liberty. The question concerning the humanity of the situation of uncertainty has been put forward to the court in two recent cases. The Courtstated that a life sentence without a minimum term indeed entails anxiety and uncertainty, but continued by judging that these are the natural consequences of the sentence of life and if there is a prospect of release, there is no reason to conclude to an inhuman punishment. Based on the current jurisprudence of the European Court one may not expect any further developments to a humanizing of the prison sentences in the near future, unless the member states decide to follow the example of Portugal and follow their own course, tributary to the ideals of the Enlightenment.