O’HALLORAN AND FRANCIS v. THE UNITED KINGDOM JUDGMENT
15
Proceeds of Crime (Northern Ireland) Order 1996. He did not attend an
interview to give the information, and was fined. Although the applicant
was acquitted in the underlying proceedings against him for false
accounting and conspiracy to defraud arising from the same set of facts, the
Court concluded that it was open to the applicant to complain of an
interference with his right not to incriminate himself. As to a justification
for the coercive measures, the Court noted that not all coercive measures
gave rise to a conclusion of an unjustified interference with the right not to
incriminate oneself. The Court found that neither the security context nor
the available procedural protection could justify the measures in the case
(see Shannon, cited above, §§ 26-40).
52. Jalloh v. Germany ([GC], no. 54810/00, ECHR 2006-IX) concerned
the use of evidence in the form of drugs swallowed by the applicant, which
had been obtained by the forcible administration of emetics. The Court
considered the right to remain silent and the privilege against selfincrimination in the following terms:
“94. ... While Article 6 guarantees the right to a fair hearing, it does not lay down
any rules on the admissibility of evidence as such, which is primarily a matter for
regulation under national law (see Schenk v. Switzerland, 12 July 1988, §§ 45-46,
Series A no. 140, and Teixeira de Castro v. Portugal, 9 June 1998, § 34, Reports
1998-IV).
...
100. As regards the use of evidence obtained in breach of the right to silence and
the privilege against self-incrimination, the Court recalls that these are generally
recognised international standards which lie at the heart of the notion of a fair
procedure under Article 6. Their rationale lies, inter alia, in the protection of the
accused against improper compulsion by the authorities, thereby contributing to the
avoidance of miscarriages of justice and to the fulfilment of the aims of Article 6. The
right not to incriminate oneself, in particular, presupposes that the prosecution in a
criminal case seek to prove their case against the accused without resort to evidence
obtained through methods of coercion or oppression in defiance of the will of the
accused (see, inter alia, Saunders, cited above, § 68; Heaney and McGuinness, cited
above, § 40; J.B. v. Switzerland, no. 31827/96, § 64, ECHR 2001-III; and Allan [v. the
United Kingdom, no. 48539/99], § 44[, ECHR 2002-IX]).
101. In examining whether a procedure has extinguished the very essence of the
privilege against self-incrimination, the Court will have regard, in particular, to the
following elements: the nature and degree of the compulsion, the existence of any
relevant safeguards in the procedures and the use to which any material so obtained is
put (see, for example, Tirado Ortiz and Lozano Martin v. Spain (dec.), no. 43486/98,
ECHR 1999-V; Heaney and McGuinness, cited above, §§ 51-55; and Allan, cited
above, § 44).
102. The Court has consistently held, however, that the right not to incriminate
oneself is primarily concerned with respecting the will of an accused person to remain
silent. As commonly understood in the legal systems of the Contracting Parties to the
Convention and elsewhere, it does not extend to the use in criminal proceedings of