22 Legal Digest of International Fair Trial Rights Also relevant to the general question of the application of fair trial rights is the extent to which they may be limited. The limitation of fair trial rights may occur by operation of three mechanisms. The first is through the interpretation and application of the particular provision(s) of the ICCPR and ECHR to a set of facts, e.g., determining what is “fair” in the circumstances may involve a restricted application of rights (in application of the overarching right to fairness in Article 14(1) of the ICCPR and Article 6(1) of the ECHR). The second is whether fair trial rights involve qualified rights capable of limitation in pursuit of identified objectives, so long as this is both necessary and proportional, e.g., the ability to restrict public access to a trial if this is necessary in the interests of the private lives of the parties (as expressly provided for in Article 14(1) of the ICCPR and Article 6(1) of the ECHR). The third situation where fair trial rights may be restricted is through derogation from the relevant provision(s) of the ICCPR or ECHR, whereby a State temporarily suspends the application of the right(s) in order to deal with a state of public emergency. It is important to note that, even during such a state of emergency, not all fair trial rights are capable of derogation. The extent to which each of the fair trial standards considered in this Digest is capable of limitation or derogation is considered within each corresponding division of this Digest. In all situations, any interference with fair trial rights must comply with the principle of legality, i.e., it must be prescribed by law. 1.1 Determination of a “criminal charge” and of a “criminal offence” The vast majority of the fair trial standards in Articles 14 and 15 of the ICCPR and Articles 6 and 7 of the ECHR are expressly applicable to criminal proceedings. Some of these guarantees are applicable only to criminal proceedings. The terminology used to define criminal proceedings differs only slightly between the generally applicable fair trial guarantees in Article 14(1) of the ICCPR and Article 6(1) of the ECHR – which refer to the determination of any “criminal charge” – and the guarantees that are specific to criminal proceedings, as found in the balance of Article 14 of the ICCPR and Article 6 of the ECHR – which refer to the determination of any “criminal offence”. The expressions are treated by the Human Rights Committee and the European Court of Human Rights as interchangeable. As a preliminary point, it should be noted that the European Court of Human Rights relies on an autonomous meaning of the ECHR provisions. As explained by the European Court in Adolf v Austria, the prominent place held in a democratic society by the right to a fair trial means that the Court will favour “a ‘substantive’, rather than a ‘formal’, conception of the ‘charge’ referred to by Article 6…; it impels the Court to look behind the appearances and examine the realities of the procedure in question in order to determine whether there has been a ‘charge’ within the meaning of Article 6”.24 The concept of a “criminal charge”, therefore, requires an autonomous interpretation. In Deweer v Belgium, the European Court defined the notion of charge (also known as an indictment) as “the official notification given to an individual by the competent authority of an allegation that he has committed a criminal offence”.25 This definition is usually accompanied in European Court jurisprudence 24 Adolf v Austria [1982] ECHR 2, para 30. 25 Deweer v Belgium [1980] ECHR 1, para 46.