30 SAUNDERS v. UNITED KINGDOM JUDGMENT CONCURRING OPINION OF JUDGE DE MEYER CONCURRING OPINION OF JUDGE DE MEYER Though concurring in the result of this judgment, I have serious reservations concerning the Court’s reasoning in paragraph 67, which seems to imply that the proceedings conducted by the DTI inspectors under the Companies Act 1985 can be separated from those involving "the determination of a criminal charge"1. It is explicitly stated in section 434 (5) of the Act that "an answer given by a person to a question put to him in the exercise of powers conferred by [that] section ... may be used in evidence against him"2. Therefrom it clearly results that for prosecution purposes there is no real or practical difference between information so obtained by the inspectors and information obtained by members of the police or of the judiciary in the course of a criminal procedure stricto sensu. In the system of the Act concerned, each of these categories of information is part of the evidence to be considered in the determination of the criminal charge, and thus the "administrative" or "preparatory investigation"3 performed by the inspectors is in fact a part of the criminal procedure. Therefore the right to silence and the right not to incriminate oneself must also apply to that preliminary investigation. These rights were, in the first place, disregarded in the 1985 Act itself, since its section 434 makes it an obligation to answer the questions of the inspectors4 and its section 436 provides for the punishment of those refusing to answer them5. 1 See paragraph 67 of the judgment. See paragraph 48 of the judgment. 3 See paragraph 67 of the judgment. 4 See paragraph 48 of the judgment. 5 See paragraphs 49 and 50 of the judgment. 2