clients having recourse to foreign lawyers to assist them in pleading their cases in court. Upon the strength of all the reasons which have just been detailed out, above, the Court finds that Burkina Faso is ill-founded in restricting the Applicant in the choice of his lawyers. It is therefore appropriate to grant the Plaintiff Counsel access to the procedure, for purposes of the trial of Mr. Djibril Yipéné Bassolé. REGARDING TAPPED TELEPHONE CONVERSATIONS AND THE PURPOSE THEY MAY HAVE SERVED The second wing of the argumentation engaged in before the Court relates to tapped telephone conversations. The Applicant makes a complaint by alleging that his telephone conversations were tapped on no legal grounds, and that the exercise was therefore carried out in violation of his rights, notably the right to protection of his privacy. Basically, the Applicant contends that the charges made against him are related exclusively to the recorded telephone conversations. He avers that: “The said recording, whose source remains unknown and whose authenticity is questionable, is the only basis upon which the investigation authorities have since relied, in claiming that he participated in a coup d’état.” (Refer to page 3 of Application). The Applicant therefore seeks an order from the Court for withdrawal of the recorded telephone conversations from the criminal trial proceedings. In response to this argument, the Defendant State, Burkina Faso, maintains that the rules themselves which protect individuals’ rights provide for restrictions on those rights. That restrictions on the privacy of individuals is a case in point; and that Article 29 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as well as provisions of the International Covenant on Human and Peoples’ Rights legislate limits to the rights they proclaim. Hence, Burkina Faso concludes, that recourse to recorded telephone conversations, conducted as an integral part of a criminal trial, can be justified. In the face of such arguments, the Court is of the view that its first duty consists of conducting an assessment as to the existence, and the impact, of the allegedly tapped telephone conversations, on the criminal case. In that regard, the Court has several remarks to make. 13