GÄFGEN v. GERMANY JUDGMENT
45
(c) The third-party interveners
(i) J.’s parents
158. In the submission of J.’s parents, the applicant’s trial had fulfilled
the requirements of Article 6. At the trial, the applicant had never indicated
that he had felt coerced to confess but had repeated that he was making his
statements freely and out of respect for his victim’s family. They claimed
that the applicant had already confessed on the second day of the trial that
he had suffocated J., even though he had denied, at that moment, that he had
planned to do so before abducting him. In his later statement he had
subsequently admitted that he had planned from the outset to kill the boy.
159. J.’s parents further underlined that the applicant had confirmed in
his final statement that, owing to the exclusion of his pre-trial statements, he
had been given the choice of remaining silent or of making a confession and
that it was not as if everything had been established. He had claimed that he
had made a full and free confession even though he had recognised the risk
that it would not have any (mitigating) effect on the trial court’s judgment.
In a book published subsequently by the applicant (entitled “Alone With
God – The Way Back”; see paragraph 85 above) there was no mention that
his confession at the trial had been caused as a consequence of the police
interrogation. In that book, he had confirmed, regarding his motives for
making a new confession at his trial, that he had wished to express remorse
and had therefore described his acts in detail, at the risk – which
materialised – that his confession might not have any effect on his sentence
(pp. 225-26). His conduct in the proceedings had not, therefore, been a
response to the trial court’s decision to admit the impugned evidence.
(ii) The Redress Trust
160. The Redress Trust underlined that the rationale of the exclusionary
rule which prohibited the admission of evidence obtained by torture or illtreatment was based upon (i) the unreliability of evidence obtained as a
result of torture; (ii) the outrage to civilised values caused and represented
by torture; (iii) the public-policy objective of removing any incentive to
undertake torture anywhere in the world; (iv) the need to ensure protection
of the fundamental rights (to due process and fairness) of the party against
whose interest the evidence was tendered; and (v) the need to preserve the
integrity of the judicial process.
161. Numerous international declarations, rules, resolutions and
conventions prohibited the admission of statements obtained by torture or
inhuman treatment as evidence in judicial proceedings. In the Redress
Trust’s view, it was arguable that the exclusionary rule covered not only
confessions but also derivative evidence found as a result of a statement
made under torture, notwithstanding that Article 15 of the United Nations
Select target paragraph3
Connect to a paragraph
Connect to an entity
Disable highlights
Add to table of contents