Alinea 25 Parket bij de Hoge Raad 11 december 2007

"Article 6 § 3 (c) guarantees three rights to a person charged with a criminal offence; to defend himself in person, to defend himself through legal assistance of his own choosing and, on certain conditions, to be given legal assistance free. To link the corresponding phrases together, the English text employs on each occasion the disjunctive "or"; the French text, on the other hand, utilises the equivalent - "ou" - only between the phrases enouncing the first and the second rights; thereafter, it uses the conjunctive "et". The "travaux préparatoires" contain hardly any explanation of this linguistic difference. They reveal solely that in the course of a final examination of the draft Convention, on the eve of its signature, a Committee of Experts made "a certain number of formal corrections and corrections of translation", including the replacement of "and" by "or" in the English version of Article 6 § 3 (c) (Collected Edition of the "Travaux Préparatoires", vol. IV, p. 1010). Having regard to the object and purpose of this paragraph, which is designed to ensure effective protection of the rights of the defence (...) , the French text here provides more reliable guidance; the court concurs with the Commission on this point. Accordingly, a "person charged with a criminal offence" who does not wish to defend himself in person must be able to have recourse to legal assistance of his own choosing; if he does not have sufficient means to pay for such assistance, he is entitled under the Convention to be given it free when the interests of justice so require."

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