10 MORICE v. FRANCE JUDGMENT bring evidence, pointing out that in order to be accepted “the evidence to be adduced must be flawless and complete and relate directly to all the allegations found to be defamatory”. As to the applicant’s good faith, it found that “the highly virulent attacks on the professional and moral integrity of the investigating judges ... clearly overstepped the right of legitimately permissible free criticism” and that the profound disagreements between Mrs Borrel’s lawyers and the investigating judges could not justify a total lack of prudence in their remarks. 41. As regards the sanction, the court expressly took into account the applicant’s status as a lawyer and the fact that he could therefore not have been “unaware of the significance and seriousness of totally imprudent comments”, finding it appropriate that “the sanction for such criminal misconduct had to be a fine of a sufficiently high amount”. It sentenced him to a fine of 4,000 euros (EUR), and ordered him to pay, jointly with the other defendants, EUR 7,500 in damages to each of the two judges in question, together with EUR 3,000 in costs. It also ordered the insertion of a notice in the newspaper Le Monde, of which the cost was to be shared between the defendants. An appeal was lodged against the judgment by the applicant, his co-defendants, the two judges with civil-party status and the public prosecutor. 42. In a judgment of 28 May 2003, the Versailles Court of Appeal found that the summonses issued on the basis of L.L.’s complaint were null and void and that his action was time-barred, and it acquitted the three defendants under that head. It further upheld the convictions of the three defendants in respect of Judge M.’s complaint, together with the amount of the fine imposed on the applicant and the damages awarded to the judge, to whom it also awarded EUR 5,000 in court costs, in addition to the order to publish a notice in the daily newspaper Le Monde. Both the applicant and Judge L.L. appealed on points of law. 43. On 12 October 2004 the Court of Cassation quashed the judgment in its entirety and remitted the case to the Rouen Court of Appeal. 44. On 25 April 2005 the Rouen Court of Appeal took note of the fact that the three defendants waived any claim of nullity in respect of the summonses issued on the basis of Judge L.L.’s complaint and it adjourned the proceedings on the merits. 45. On 8 June 2005 the President of the Criminal Division of the Court of Cassation dismissed applications from the three defendants and the civil parties for the immediate examination of their appeals on points of law. 46. In a judgment of 16 July 2008, after a number of adjournments and the holding of a hearing on 30 April 2008, the Rouen Court of Appeal upheld the dismissal by the Nanterre tribunal de grande instance of the immunity objection, and also upheld the defendants’ convictions for complicity in the public defamation of civil servants in the applicant’s case. It ordered the applicant to pay a fine of EUR 4,000 and upheld the award of