32 SAUNDERS v. UNITED KINGDOM JUDGMENT CONCURRING OPINION OF JUDGE REPIK CONCURRING OPINION OF JUDGE REPIK (Translation) Whilst I concur in the Court’s finding that there has been a violation of Article 6 para. 1 (art. 6-1), I am unable to agree with the wording of the first sub-paragraph of paragraph 67 of the judgment inasmuch as it implies that Article 6 para. 1 of the Convention (art. 6-1) does not apply to the proceedings conducted by the DTI inspectors. In the context of the judgment, that passage appears to be superfluous. That issue was not raised by the parties (see paragraph 67 of the judgment, first sentence of the first sub-paragraph) and the Court stated that its sole concern was "the use made of the relevant statements at the applicant’s criminal trial" (paragraph 67 of the judgment, second sub-paragraph). If the passage concerned was merely superfluous, the matter could be left there and disregarded on the principle superfluum non nocet. However, the Court appears to have decided the issue, although confining itself to a summary reference to the Deweer v. Belgium and Fayed v. the United Kingdom judgments (27 February 1980, Series A no. 35, and 21 September 1994, Series A no. 294-B), without taking account of the fact that the issue to be decided differs from the ones that arose in those two cases and without putting forward any argument apt to support its position. The question was not whether the inspectors were empowered to determine a criminal charge. The question of the applicability of Article 6 para. 1 (art. 6-1) in the criminal sphere is not the same as in the civil sphere considered in the Fayed judgment. It is quite unnecessary for the inspectors to have any decision-making powers; it suffices that they have investigative powers in respect of a criminal charge. It is not so rare, in particular in the financial sector, for administrative bodies to be vested with powers at the pre-trial stage of criminal proceedings. Admittedly, under domestic law, the proceedings before the inspectors did not form part of the criminal proceedings, but the issue was whether or not they concerned a criminal charge within the autonomous meaning of that expression in Article 6 (art. 6). In the instant case, it is not clear that the answer to that question is no, if the following circumstances are taken into consideration: (i) by 12 January 1987 at the latest, the inspectors were in possession of concrete evidence that criminal offences had been committed (see paragraph 20 of the judgment); (ii) as early as 30 January 1987 the applicant was identified as one of the persons suspected of having committed those offences (see paragraph 23 of the judgment); (iii) at the conference on 25 February 1987 attended by members of the Crown Prosecution Service, it was noted that police inquiries were justified since a fraud had clearly been committed. However, it was decided to delay