A. AND OTHERS v. THE UNITED KINGDOM JUDGMENT 83 national security and in suspecting him of being a terrorist. This is a separate and distinct question, which cannot be said to be absorbed in the finding of a violation of Article 5 § 1, and which the Court must therefore examine. 215. The Court reiterates that although the judges sitting as SIAC were able to consider both the “open” and “closed” material, neither the applicants nor their legal advisers could see the closed material. Instead, the closed material was disclosed to one or more special advocates, appointed by the solicitor-general to act on behalf of each applicant. During the closed sessions before SIAC, the special advocate could make submissions on behalf of the applicant, both as regards procedural matters, such as the need for further disclosure, and as to the substance of the case. However, from the point at which the special advocate first had sight of the closed material, he was not permitted to have any further contact with the applicant and his representatives, save with the permission of SIAC. In respect of each appeal against certification, SIAC issued both an open and a closed judgment. 216. The Court takes as its starting point that, as the national courts found and it has accepted, during the period of the applicants’ detention the activities and aims of the al-Qaeda network had given rise to a “public emergency threatening the life of the nation”. It must therefore be borne in mind that at the relevant time there was considered to be an urgent need to protect the population of the United Kingdom from terrorist attack and, although the United Kingdom did not derogate from Article 5 § 4, a strong public interest in obtaining information about al-Qaeda and its associates and in maintaining the secrecy of the sources of such information (see also, in this connection, Fox, Campbell and Hartley, cited above, § 39). 217. Balanced against these important public interests, however, was the applicants’ right under Article 5 § 4 to procedural fairness. Although the Court has found that, with the exception of the second and fourth applicants, the applicants’ detention did not fall within any of the categories listed in sub-paragraphs (a) to (f) of Article 5 § 1, it considers that the case-law relating to judicial control over detention on remand is relevant, since in such cases also the reasonableness of the suspicion against the detained person is a sine qua non (see paragraph 204 above). Moreover, in the circumstances of the present case, and in view of the dramatic impact of the lengthy – and what appeared at that time to be indefinite – deprivation of liberty on the applicants’ fundamental rights, Article 5 § 4 must import substantially the same fair-trial guarantees as Article 6 § 1 in its criminal aspect (see Garcia Alva v. Germany, no. 23541/94, § 39, 13 February 2001, and Chahal, cited above, §§ 130-31). 218. Against this background, it was essential that as much information about the allegations and evidence against each applicant was disclosed as was possible without compromising national security or the safety of others. Where full disclosure was not possible, Article 5 § 4 required that the