MEDVEDYEV AND OTHERS v. FRANCE JUDGMENT – SEPARATE OPINIONS
45
for the French vessel and armed forces; attempts to contact it by radio
received no reply; a number of packages were thrown overboard, one of
which was recovered and found to contain about 100 kilos of cocaine; and
finally, the resistance put up by the crew obliged the French forces to use
their weapons. In such conditions, how is it possible to say that the
interception, boarding and inspection of the Winner, and the confinement of
the crew to their quarters, were unforeseeable?
10. Basically, it is necessary to be realistic in such exceptional
circumstances. Cambodia was not party to the United Nations Convention
on the Law of the Sea (“the Montego Bay Convention”) and the United
Nations Convention against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and
Psychotropic Substances (“the Vienna Convention”); but that did not
prevent it from concluding, as it did, a bilateral agreement with France, as
acknowledged in paragraphs 97 and 98 of the judgment. That being so, and
bearing in mind that under domestic law the offences of which the
applicants were suspected were punishable offences, and that it was not in
dispute that the applicants were punished in the proper legal manner, is it
necessary to apply the same criteria of “lawfulness” to the legal basis
provided by the diplomatic note as are applied in much less exceptional
situations? We think not. We believe that the deprivation of liberty imposed
on the applicants was not arbitrary, which is, of course, what Article 5
requires above all (see, for example, Winterwerp v. the Netherlands,
24 October 1979, § 39, Series A no. 33, among many other authorities). We
believe that the requirement of legal certainty, which was decisive in the
finding reached in the judgment (see, by analogy, Baranowski v. Poland,
no. 28358/95, § 56, ECHR 2000-III) was, in the circumstances, construed
too narrowly. Lastly, is it necessary to point out that although the Winner –
with the agreement of the flag State – was undeniably within the jurisdiction
of France for the purposes of Article 1 of the Convention, that is no reason
to draw conclusions that stretch logic? When there is sufficient concurring
evidence to suspect that a ship on the high seas, thousands of miles from the
State thus authorised to board it, is engaged in international trafficking to
which all countries want to put a stop, it is without a doubt legitimate not to
place as narrow an interpretation on the legal basis as one would inside the
territory of the State concerned.