COLOZZA v. ITALY JUGDMENT 11 It is not the Court’s function to elaborate a general theory in this area (see, mutatis mutandis, the Deweer judgment of 27 February 1980, Series A no. 35, p. 25, para. 49). As was pointed out by the Government, the impossibility of holding a trial by default may paralyse the conduct of criminal proceedings, in that it may lead, for example, to dispersal of the evidence, expiry of the time-limit for prosecution or a miscarriage of justice. However, in the circumstances of the case, this fact does not appear to the Court to be of such a nature as to justify a complete and irreparable loss of the entitlement to take part in the hearing. When domestic law permits a trial to be held notwithstanding the absence of a person "charged with a criminal offence" who is in Mr. Colozza’s position, that person should, once he becomes aware of the proceedings, be able to obtain, from a court which has heard him, a fresh determination of the merits of the charge. 30. The Contracting States enjoy a wide discretion as regards the choice of the means calculated to ensure that their legal systems are in compliance with the requirements of Article 6 para. 1 (art. 6-1) in this field. The Court’s task is not to indicate those means to the States, but to determine whether the result called for by the Convention has been achieved (see, mutatis mutandis, the De Cubber judgment of 26 October 1984, Series A no. 86, p. 20, para. 35). For this to be so, the resources available under domestic law must be shown to be effective and a person "charged with a criminal offence" who is in a situation like that of Mr. Colozza must not be left with the burden of proving that he was not seeking to evade justice or that his absence was due to force majeure. 31. According to Italian case-law, the applicant was entitled to lodge a "late appeal" and, in fact, he did so (see paragraphs 14 and 23 above). This remedy does not satisfy the criteria mentioned above. The court hearing the appeal can determine the merits (in French: "bien-fondé") of the criminal charge, as regards the factual and legal issues, only if it finds that the competent authorities have failed to comply with the rules governing declarations that an accused is "latitante" or governing service on him of the documents in the proceedings; in addition, it is for the person concerned to prove that he was not seeking to evade justice (see paragraph 23 above). In the present case, neither the Court of Appeal nor the Court of Cassation redressed the alleged violation: the former confined itself to holding the appeal inadmissible and the latter concluded that the declaration of "latitanza" was legitimate (see paragraphs 16 and 17 above). 32. Thus, Mr. Colozza’s case was at the end of the day never heard, in his presence, by a "tribunal" which was competent to determine all the aspects of the matter. According to the Government, however, the applicant himself was responsible for this state of affairs since he neither informed the City Hall of his change of address nor, once he was treated as "latitante", took the