66 Legal Digest of International Fair Trial Rights In Procola v Luxembourg, the applicant complained that four of the five members sitting on the Judicial Committee ruling on his case had previously sat on the advisory panel that had given its opinion on the draft regulation that was at stake during the proceeding. In view of the opinions they had previously expressed, it was argued that the members of the Judicial Committee could not have approached the question submitted to them with a completely open mind.250 The European Court found that the mere fact that certain persons successively performed two types of functions (advisory and judicial) in the same case did in that case cast doubt on the institution’s structural impartiality.251 The situation in which, following the annulment of the first instance decision by a higher court and the referral to the lower court, the same judge examines the case at first instance two or more times does not raise questions of objective impartiality and should be distinguished from instances where the same judge intervenes at different stages of proceedings. 3.3.3 Independence and Impartiality of Juries The requirements of independence and impartiality have been held to apply to juries as well as judges.252 In its General Comment on the right to a fair trial, the Human Rights Committee referred to jurisprudence of the Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, citing as an example of unfairness the situation where expressions of racist attitudes were made by a jury that appeared to be tolerated by the tribunal.253 The same factual situation was also held to be a violation of Article 6(1) by the European Court of Human Rights in Remli v France, where a juror was overheard in the corridor outside the courtroom stating: “I’m racist. I don’t like Arabs.” The European Court focused its attention on the juror’s statement and the fact that the applicant’s complaint had been dismissed by the national court on a purely formal ground, i.e., that the court was “not able to take formal note of events alleged to have occurred out of its presence”. The national court also failed to take any steps to collect evidence in order to verify what had been reported or to take formal note of it. The applicant had consequently been unable either to have the juror in question replaced or to challenge the juror’s impartiality in any other way. The European Court, therefore, found that the applicant had been deprived of the possibility of remedying a situation, contrary to the requirements of the ECHR.254 In Gregory v United Kingdom, the European Court clarified that, while the guarantee of a fair trial may in certain circumstances require a judge to discharge a jury, this is not always the only means to achieve compliance with the right to a fair trial. Other safeguards, including a carefully worded redirection to the jury, as in Gregory v United Kingdom, may be 250 Procola v Luxembourg [1995] ECHR 33, para 41. 251 Procola v Luxembourg [1995] ECHR 33, paras 45–46. 252 Holm v Sweden [1993] ECHR 58, paras 33–34; and Remli v France [1996] ECHR 18, para 46. 253 Narrainen v Norway, CERD Communication 3/1991, UN Doc CERD/C/44/D/3/1991 (1994), para 9.3 – cited in UN Human Rights Committee, CCPR General Comment 32 (2007), para 25. 254 Remli v France [1996] ECHR 18, paras 46–48.