10 GÄFGEN v. GERMANY JUDGMENT known to the investigation authorities because of the statements unlawfully extracted was prohibited. The applicant included a full copy of these applications of 9 April 2003, including the grounds given for them. He further included a copy of the Regional Court’s decision of 9 April 2003 dismissing his application for the proceedings to be discontinued and argued in respect of the police’s threats of torture against him that, developing the case-law of the Federal Court of Justice, such conduct “leapt beyond” the exclusion of evidence and led to an impediment to the proceedings (dass ein derartiges Verhalten das Verwertungsverbot “überspringt” und ein Verfahrenshindernis begründet). 38. In his observations dated 9 March 2004 the Federal Public Prosecutor objected that the applicant’s appeal on points of law was manifestly ill-founded. He argued that the use of prohibited methods of interrogation did not lead to an impediment to the criminal proceedings. Article 136a of the Code of Criminal Procedure expressly provided that the use of any of the prohibited methods enumerated entailed only the exclusion of evidence. The applicant had not complained of a breach of Article 136a § 3 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. In any event, there would be no grounds for such a complaint as the Regional Court had only used the applicant’s confession at the trial, which he had made after having been informed that his previous statements had not been admitted as evidence. 39. On 21 May 2004 the Federal Court of Justice, without giving further reasons, dismissed the applicant’s appeal on points of law as ill-founded. 3. The proceedings in the Federal Constitutional Court 40. On 23 June 2004 the applicant lodged a complaint with the Federal Constitutional Court. Summarising the facts underlying the case and the content of the impugned decisions, he complained under Article 1 § 1 and Article 104 § 1, second sentence, of the Basic Law about the way in which he had been questioned by the police on the morning of 1 October 2002. He argued that he had been threatened with being subjected to torture and sexual abuse if he did not disclose the child’s whereabouts. In the circumstances of the case, this treatment amounted to torture within the meaning of Article 3 of the Convention and infringed Article 104 § 1 of the Basic Law. It also violated his absolute right to human dignity under Article 1 of the Basic Law, which lay at the heart of the provisions in question. These unjustifiable human rights violations ought to have been a bar to the criminal proceedings for murder and a prohibition on using the evidence obtained as a consequence of the confession extracted from him by means of prohibited measures. 41. On 14 December 2004 the Federal Constitutional Court, sitting as a panel of three judges, held that the applicant’s constitutional complaint was inadmissible.