SAUNDERS v. UNITED KINGDOM JUDGMENT DISSENTING OPINION OF JUDGE MARTENS, JOINED BY JUDGE KURIS 49 defence - inter alia by excluding the evidence from the eighth and ninth interviews27; and (3) that the trial judge, in his summing-up - which was qualified by the Court of Appeal as "in the main a masterly exposition"28 -, compared and contrasted what the applicant had said in court with his answers to the DTI inspectors, thereby demonstrating that he did not consider such use unfair29). Apparently, Mr Saunders has not been able to persuade the Court of Appeal that the trial judge has been remiss in guarding the fairness of the proceedings. Nor have I been so persuaded. In paragraph 72 the Court attaches much weight to the fact that at a certain stage of the trial - days 45 to 47 - the transcripts of the interviews30 were read to the jury. I recall, however, that right from the beginning of the trial Mr Saunders’s defence was essentially that, whatever fraud had taken place, he was innocent because ignorant. He maintained that he knew nothing about giving of indemnities or the paying of success fees and that he had not been consulted on such matters. The transcripts made it possible to refute this defence and were used to do so31. I therefore find that - whatever is the exact meaning of the Court of Appeal’s rather approximate remark that the interviews "formed a significant part of the prosecution case"32 (32) - Mr Saunders’s answers to the DTI inspectors were only used in evidence against him, essentially, in order to demonstrate that the evidence which he had chosen to give at his trial was not reliable in that it was incompatible on certain points with those answers. I do not consider that to have been an unfair use of those answers. 27. For the above reasons I have voted against finding a violation of the applicant’s rights under Article 6 (art. 6). 27 See paragraphs 28 and 29 of the Court's judgment. See paragraph 38 of the Court's judgment. 29 See paragraph 33 of the Court's judgment. 30 In paragraph 72 the Court says "part of the transcript", but paragraph 31 clearly implies that the complete transcripts were read which makes it understandable that the reading took three days. That the transcripts were read in full is the more probable since reading only parts could have been unfair towards the defence. However, if one accepts - as I do - that the transcripts were read in full, this reading can hardly be styled as "such extensive use". 31 See paragraph 31 of the Court's judgment. I fail to understand why the Court, in paragraph 72 of its judgment seems to find it material that the prosecution "must have believed that the reading of the transcripts assisted their case in establishing the applicant's dishonesty". Of course they did and, as the outcome of the trial shows, rightly so. But what has that to do with the issue whether that reading made the trial unfair? Does the Court suggest that the prosecution had improper motives? Is that why it furthermore tries to base an argument on the prosecution's wish to avail itself also of the transcripts of the eighth and ninth interview, although in paragraph 29 of its judgment it has established that these transcripts had been ruled out by the trial judge? These uncertainties make the Court's reasoning on this important issue, which at any rate seems rather the more unpersuasive. 32 See paragraphs 40 and 72 of the Court's judgment. 28