GÄFGEN v. GERMANY JUDGMENT 51 28 October 1998, §§ 115-16, Reports 1998-VIII). However, it does not oblige States to do so by conduct that violates the absolute prohibition of inhuman treatment under Article 3 or in a manner that breaches the right of every defendant to a fair trial under Article 6 (compare, mutatis mutandis, Osman, cited above, § 116). The Court accepts that the State agents in this case acted in a difficult and stressful situation and were attempting to save a life. This does not, however, alter the fact that they obtained real evidence by a breach of Article 3. Moreover, it is in the face of the heaviest penalties that respect for the right to a fair trial is to be ensured to the highest possible degree by democratic societies (compare Salduz v. Turkey [GC], no. 36391/02, § 54, ECHR 2008). 178. However, contrary to Article 3, Article 6 does not enshrine an absolute right. The Court must therefore determine what measures are to be considered both necessary and sufficient in criminal proceedings concerning evidence secured as the result of a breach of Article 3 in order to secure effective protection of the rights guaranteed by Article 6. As established in its case-law (see paragraphs 165-67 above), the use of such evidence raises serious issues as to the fairness of the proceedings. Admittedly, in the context of Article 6, the admission of evidence obtained by conduct absolutely prohibited by Article 3 might be an incentive for lawenforcement officers to use such methods notwithstanding such absolute prohibition. The repression of, and the effective protection of individuals from, the use of investigation methods that breach Article 3 may therefore also require, as a rule, the exclusion from use at trial of real evidence which has been obtained as the result of any violation of Article 3, even though that evidence is more remote from the breach of Article 3 than evidence extracted immediately as a consequence of a violation of that Article. Otherwise, the trial as a whole is rendered unfair. However, the Court considers that both a criminal trial’s fairness and the effective protection of the absolute prohibition under Article 3 in that context are only at stake if it has been shown that the breach of Article 3 had a bearing on the outcome of the proceedings against the defendant, that is, had an impact on his or her conviction or sentence. 179. The Court notes that, in the present case, the Regional Court expressly based its findings of fact concerning the execution of the crime committed by the applicant – and thus the findings decisive for the applicant’s conviction for murder and kidnapping with extortion – exclusively on the new, full confession made by the applicant at the trial (see paragraph 34 above). Moreover, that court also considered the new confession the essential, if not the only, basis for its findings of fact concerning the planning of the crime, which likewise played a role in the applicant’s conviction and sentence (ibid.). The additional evidence admitted at the trial was not used by the Regional Court against the applicant to prove his guilt, but only to test the veracity of his confession.