17 DELCOURT v. BELGIUM JUDGMENT Commission itself so interpreted the "new complaints" in its Report. Accordingly, the Court considers that it would be unduly formalistic and therefore unjustified not to take account of these elements in the case. 41. The Applicant’s "new complaints" must, on the other hand, be rejected as ill-founded. The fact that the Procureur général’s department at the Court of Cassation expresses its opinion at the end of the hearing, without having communicated it in advance to the parties, is explained by the very nature of its task as already described by the Court in pronouncing upon Delcourt’s principal complaint. Article 6 (art. 6) of the Convention does not require, even by implication, that an accused should have the possibility of replying to the purely legal submissions of an independent official attached to the highest court in Belgium as its assistant and adviser. 42. Having regard, therefore, to the nature of the proceedings before the Belgian Court of Cassation, it has not been established that the Applicant did not receive a fair hearing before that court. FOR THESE REASONS, THE COURT Holds, unanimously, that in the present case there has been no breach of Article 6 para. 1 (art. 6-1) of the Convention. Done in English and in French, the French text being authentic, at the Human Rights Building, Strasbourg, this seventeenth day of January, one thousand nine hundred and seventy. Sir Humphrey WALDOCK President M.-A. EISSEN Registrar