15 DELCOURT v. BELGIUM JUDGMENT effect, is, before all else, to investigate and prosecute criminal offences in order to protect the safety of society (see, for example, Articles 22 and 271 of the Code of Criminal Procedure). The Procureur général’s department at the Court of Cassation, on the other hand, upholds a different interest, that which is concerned with the observance by the judges of the law and not with the establishment of the guilt or innocence of the accused. Incidentally, the Procureur général attached to the Court of Cassation exercises in civil matters functions close to those which he exercises in criminal matters. Yet no one could ever seriously suggest that he becomes the opponent of a litigant with whose case his submissions do not agree. 34. Admittedly, even in the absence of a prosecuting party, a trial would not be fair if it took place in such conditions as to put the accused unfairly at a disadvantage. A close examination of the legislation in issue as it is applied in practice does not, however, disclose any such result. The Procureur général’s department at the Court of Cassation is, in a word, an adjunct and an adviser of the Court; it discharges a function of a quasijudicial nature. By the opinions which it gives according to its legal conscience, it assists the Court to supervise the lawfulness of the decisions attacked and to ensure the uniformity of judicial precedent. Examination of the facts shows that these considerations are not abstract or theoretical but are indeed real and actual. The statistics cited at the hearing on 30th September 1969 are very striking on this point; they show that the Procureur général’s department at the Court of Cassation frequently either submits that appeals in cassation against a decision of acquittal brought by the Procureur général’s department at the courts of first instance or appeal should be dismissed or an appeal by a convicted person should be allowed, or even raises, ex officio, grounds which a convicted person has not relied on, has put forward out of time or has not formulated with sufficient clarity. 35. Nor could the independence and impartiality of the Court of Cassation itself be adversely affected by the presence of a member of the Procureur général’s department at its deliberations once it has been shown that the Procureur général himself is independent and impartial. 36. One last point is that the system now challenged dates back for more than a century and a half. While it is true that the long standing of a national legal rule cannot justify a failure to comply with the present requirements of international law, it may under certain conditions provide supporting evidence that there has been no such failure. The Court is of the opinion that this is the case here. In this connection, the Court notes that on two occasions a parliament chosen in free elections has deliberately decided to maintain the system, the first time unchanged (preparatory work to the Act of 19th April 1949), the second time in substance and after studying the question in the context of the Convention (preparation of the new Judicial Code). Furthermore, the propriety and fairness of the rule laid down in