NEUMEISTER v. AUSTRIA JUDGMENT 23 10. With regard to the sixth criterion, the Commission begins by analysing the provisions of Austrian law governing the preliminary investigation, in particular the distribution of cases among examining judges (Sections 83 (2) and 87 (3) of the Constitution, Section 18 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, Section 4 (2) of the "Gerichtsverfassungsnovelle" and Sections 17-19 of the "Geschäftsordnung für die Gerichtshöfe Erster und Zweiter Instanz"); it then examines the course of the investigation of the Applicant’s case. It does not find that the competent organs neglected their duties or in any other similar way prolonged Neumeister’s detention, but it considers that the working of the system in force caused certain delays, since the Investigating Judge had to deal with several very bulky and complicated cases at the same time. The Commission remarks that it has experienced some difficulty in finding out whether the allocation of cases can under Austrian law be changed once the annual distribution has been established. It points out that, while the Government denies that this can be done, the judge responsible for investigating the Matznetter case, which is also pending before the Court, was temporarily relieved of other cases. However, the Commission does not think it necessary to go further into the question: it is a general principle of international law that a State cannot invoke its own legislation to justify failure to fulfil its treaty obligations. The Commission therefore sees no reason to investigate whether the delays it has found to have occurred are the result of a legal obstacle or of failure to apply clauses by which they could have been avoided. In short, consideration of the facts in the light of the sixth criterion is said to suggest that the length of Neumeister’s detention was excessive. It is true that, at the hearing in February 1968, the Government’s representatives gave the Court further details of the steps taken to relieve the burden on the Investigating Judge (cf. infra). The Commission’s answer is that those details would have caused it to amplify its Report somewhat if it had had them then; but that they are not of such a nature as to upset its conclusion. 11. The Commission considers that the conduct of the judicial authorities in connection with Neumeister’s applications for release pending trial (first part of the seventh criterion) is open to differing evaluations. It therefore finds it hard to state with certainty whether or not an examination of this factor leads to the conclusion that the length of detention exceeded reasonable bounds. The Commission does not in any case accept the Government’s argument (cf. infra) that Neumeister forfeited his right to "trial within a reasonable time" on the day the Judge’s Chamber of the Regional Criminal Court of Vienna first agreed in principle to release him on bail (8 January 1964). It asserts that the second sentence of Article 5 (3) (art. 5-3) of the Convention affords the Contracting States a middle way between continuing detention and outright release, but it does not consider that resort to that solution gives a Government an excuse for keeping in detention indefinitely a person who