38 GÄFGEN v. GERMANY JUDGMENT ... 3. Everyone charged with a criminal offence has the following minimum rights: ... (c) to defend himself in person or through legal assistance of his own choosing ...” A. Scope of the case before the Grand Chamber 134. The Court notes that before the Grand Chamber, the applicant also repeated his complaint under Article 6 that he had been deliberately refused contact with his defence counsel on 1 October 2002 until all the evidence against him had been secured. According to its case-law, the “case” referred to the Grand Chamber is the application as it has been declared admissible by the Chamber (see, inter alia, K. and T. v. Finland [GC], no. 25702/94, § 141, ECHR 2001-VII; Göç v. Turkey [GC], no. 36590/97, § 36, ECHR 2002-V; and Cumpǎnǎ and Mazǎre v. Romania [GC], no. 33348/96, § 66, ECHR 2004-XI). As the Chamber, in its decision on admissibility of 10 April 2007, found that the applicant had failed to exhaust domestic remedies as required by Article 35 § 1 of the Convention in respect of the complaint concerning consultation of his defence counsel, the Grand Chamber has no jurisdiction to examine it. B. The Government’s preliminary objection 135. The Government objected that the applicant had failed to exhaust domestic remedies as required by Article 35 § 1 of the Convention in respect of his remaining complaint under Article 6. He had not properly raised before the domestic courts his complaints about the failure to discontinue the criminal proceedings against him and the failure to exclude the use in those proceedings of items of evidence obtained as a result of the prohibited methods of investigation. 1. The Chamber judgment 136. The Chamber did not consider it necessary to rule on the Government’s preliminary objection, which it had joined to the merits of the complaint under Article 6, as it found that there had been no violation of Article 6 (see paragraph 86 of the Chamber judgment).

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