SELMOUNI v. FRANCE JUDGMENT 20 The complete unreliability of the documents drawn up by the investigators is extremely serious in that the entire functioning of the criminal justice system rests on the reliance that may be placed on the reports of senior police officers and their assistants [officiers et agents de police judiciaire]. In view of all the foregoing, the brutality of which the defendants are accused is patent and the trial court rightly held that during the proceedings they had done nothing but conceal the truth about their behaviour. … As to the sentence The offences of which the defendants are guilty are exceptionally serious ones, and that precludes their benefiting from the provisions of the amnesty of 3 August 1995. They must be regarded as instances of particularly degrading treatment. Having been committed by senior officials responsible for enforcing the laws of the Republic, they must be punished firmly as such conduct cannot be justified, irrespective of the personality of the offenders in their charge and the degree of their corruption and dangerousness. The seriousness of the offences, however, cannot be compared with what it would have been if the sexual assaults had been made out against the defendants. Nor do the offences appear to have been the result of a concerted plan. In view of the part played by each, the absence of any previous criminal record and the administrative files on the defendants, the Court considers that it must accordingly reduce the length of the prison sentences as indicated in the operative provisions of the judgment and leave it to the discretion of the defendants’ superiors to determine what disciplinary consequences are necessary in the case, the prison sentences being suspended, only in part as regards Hervé, whose responsibility appears greater, regard being had to his being the officer in charge. ...” PROCEEDINGS BEFORE THE COMMISSION 66. Mr Selmouni applied to the Commission on 28 December 1992. He alleged a violation of Articles 3 and 6 § 1 of the Convention. 67. The Commission declared the application (no. 25803/94) admissible on 25 November 1996. In its report of 11 December 1997 (former Article 31 of the Convention), it expressed the unanimous opinion that there had been a violation of Articles 3 and 6 § 1. The full text of the Commission’s opinion is reproduced as an annex to this judgment1. 1. Note by the Registry. For practical reasons this annex will appear only with the final printed version of the judgment (in the official reports of selected judgments and decisions of the Court), but a copy of the Commission’s report is obtainable from the Registry.