38 SAUNDERS v. UNITED KINGDOM JUDGMENT DISSENTING OPINION OF JUDGE MARTENS, JOINED BY JUDGE KURIS subjected to improper2 physical or psychological pressure. I accept that both rights - and more especially the right to remain silent - still serve this purpose. Also today it remains necessary to protect suspects under custodial police questioning against such pressure. I also accept that since there is a not negligible chance that statements made under pressure may be unreliable, the rationale of the immunities under discussion comprises - as the Court put it – the avoidance of miscarriages of justice. Furthermore, I accept that there is a certain link between these immunities and the presumptio innocentiae as enshrined in Article 6 para. 2 (art. 6-2) in so far as they allow an accused not only to keep silent during police interrogation but also to refuse to answer questions of investigating or trial judges as well as to give evidence himself3. 9. However, these rationales hardly justify the Court’s qualification of these two immunities as lying "at the heart of the notion of fair procedure". I therefore suspect that other, not explicitly mentioned, rationales have contributed to that qualification. In this context I note that legal writers and courts have frequently accepted a further rationale4. Its formulations vary, but they all essentially boil down to the proposition that respect for human dignity and autonomy requires that every suspect should be completely free to decide which attitude he will adopt with respect to the criminal charges against him. On this view it would be improper, because incompatible with such respect, to compel an accused to cooperate in whatever way in bringing about his own conviction. This rationale often seems to be the main justification for the broader privilege against self-incrimination. The present judgment strongly suggests that the Court now has embraced this view. A first argument for this interpretation is that in the second sentence of paragraph 68 it repeats the rationale given in John Murray (see paragraph 6 above) but - by prefacing its quotation by the words "inter alia" - underlines that this is only part of the rationale of the two immunities. A 2 Term taken from paragraphs 45 and 46 of the John Murray judgment previously cited; if the Court's terminology in that judgment implies, as I think it does, that not every form of compulsion violates these rights, I agree; if, however, it implies that every form of compulsion is "improper" - which is a possible reading, the more so since it squares with the rationale to be discussed in paragraph 10 below – I disagree also on this point. 3 See paragraph 47 of the above-mentioned John Murray judgment. 4 I pass over - as in my view defective - such "rationales" as that these immunities prevent a suspect from being subjected to "cruel choices", or that it is unethical to compel somebody to collaborate in bringing about his own doom. Such "rationales" cannot justify the immunities under discussion since they obviously presuppose that the suspect is guilty, for an innocent suspect would not be subjected to such choices nor bring about his own ruin by answering questions truthfully! Innocent suspects are, therefore, not treated cruelly or unethically, whilst guilty suspects should not complain that society does not allow them to escape conviction by refusing to answer questions or otherwise hiding evidence.