70 GIULIANI AND GAGGIO v. ITALY JUDGMENT intermediate object theory. Furthermore, at the time Carlo Giuliani's body was returned to his family for cremation there had been no reason to suppose that the autopsy report, which had not yet been written, would be “superficial”. It was usual practice, moreover, to hand over the body to the relatives once the experts had indicated that they had no further need of it. This spared the victim's relatives a further ordeal and respected their rights under Article 8 of the Convention. 268. The cremation had been requested by the applicants themselves, who had been informed that an autopsy was due to take place and could have attended it. Moreover, the applicants' representative had not made any application for the immediate production of evidence (the Government referred to Sottani v. Italy (dec.), no. 26775/02, ECHR 2005-III, in which the Court had dismissed a similar complaint). 269. As the Court had had occasion to state (the Government referred, mutatis mutandis, to R.K. and A.K. v. the United Kingdom, no. 38000/05, § 36, 30 September 2008), whether or not an investigation had been conducted properly had to be assessed ex ante, on the basis of the facts known when the decision was taken, and not ex post facto. An investigation was defective for the purposes of the Convention if the shortcomings identified undermined its capability of establishing the circumstances of the case or the persons responsible (the Government referred to Makaratzis, cited above, § 74). Only unusual circumstances had led the Court, in certain cases, to find a procedural violation of Article 2 without finding a substantive violation of the same provision or of Article 38 of the Convention (the Government referred, by way of example, to Hugh Jordan v. the United Kingdom (no. 24746/94, ECHR 2001-III)), and this had in any case given rise to dissenting opinions (the Government cited the example of Ramsahai and Others v. the Netherlands ([GC], no. 52391/99, ECHR 2007-VI)). In the instant case, the conclusions of the domestic authorities as to the existence of self-defence had been endorsed by the Chamber. Accordingly, any defect there might have been in the investigation had no impact on its effectiveness. 270. In any event, the effectiveness requirement was an obligation as to means rather than results. The Government conceded that “certain documents noted difficulties in reconstructing the events, on account, inter alia, of the unavailability of some elements”. However, those difficulties had not been attributable to the authorities or to any negligence on their part, but had resulted from objective circumstances beyond their control. The investigators had therefore complied with their obligation as to means. Moreover, even assuming that any doubts persisted with regard to some elements, it was the accused and not the victim who had to be given the benefit of the doubt in criminal matters. Lastly, it should not be overlooked that the Court had judged domestic investigations to be “effective” where errors had been committed by the authorities (the Government referred to